


a kingdom for a kiss

by starklystar



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, So here we are, Tony Stark plays the piano, and steve sings with a guitar, but they pine through music cause that's the kind of idiots they are, not technically enemies but, there is no hyperspecific tag for this AU, we don't have a tag for idiots in denial to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27896734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starklystar/pseuds/starklystar
Summary: Three things to know:1. Tony is not just a prince. He’stheCrown Prince. Technically, he’s Edward Gregorius Anthony, Prince of the Starks, but Gregorius isn’t a name Tony is particularly fond of, and Ed sounds less sophisticated than he likes.2. Tony would very much like it if that fact remained unknown, especially when all of Avengers Academy seemed to dislike its newest exchange student.3. Student President Steven Grant Rogers is anass, no matter how good theHowling Commandosband is.-------------Or, a modern royalty AU where Steve writes a few songs about Tony, and Tony has conflicting views about what the Student President’s ass means.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 40
Kudos: 363





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for @aspiring-academic on tumblr who asked for a royalty and band and college au mash up and this got very out of hand because i miss playing music and had to channel some of that here. hope you all are staying safe :)

“Why can’t he just buy some fancy house off campus?” Steve scowls at the announcement board.

Some exchange kid named Stark was moving into student housing, which meant stricter, routine security checks to ensure the wellbeing of all, and which really meant to ensure the pampered boy wouldn’t have his dainty fingers hurt.

It was a matter of principle that bothered Steve: the checks were understandable. The added burden on students to go through those checks? Less acceptable.

Why did the rich think throwing money around was a perfectly good justification to make others’ lives harder?

“Rumor has it his father’s really rich,” Sam shrugs, “but we’ve all tried stalking him and we’ve found _nothing_.”

“Great,” Bucky shifts his cello case on his shoulder, “so he _is_ a spoiled kid.”

“And he really is standing behind you,” someone clears their throat.

Steve takes one second to curse in his head, but he isn’t about to back down. His Ma taught him that if he dares to say anything behind someone’s back, he should very well dare to say it to their faces.

“Mr. Stark,” he greets, then stumbles over himself.

Whoever Anthony Stark was, he doesn’t look rich. The man was shorter than Steve, his greasy band shirt – was that a _Howling Commandos_ shirt? – nearly as badly crumpled as his hair. There was a scuffed up briefcase in one hand, and sunglasses covering his eyes.

The only indication that he _could_ be rich was the larger man behind him, wearing a black suit with an earpiece.

Stark crosses his arms, smile sharp. “It’s either Tony or Your Royal Highness, you pick.”

Bucky scoffs, but the suited man steps closer to them, flanking Stark properly.

“Boss, you need me to handle this?”

“Nah, everything’s fine, Hap,” Stark waves his bodyguard – chauffeur? – away. “We wouldn’t want to cause a scene, now, would we?”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve doesn’t bother offering a hand. “Head of the student community here.”

“And I assume the other two are your loyal followers?” Stark waves at Bucky and Sam.

It’s fortunate that Sam reels Bucky in with a quick, “we help make sure every student’s needs are met, and we’d appreciate your cooperation.”

Otherwise, Bucky might’ve done something to really get them in trouble.

Stark raises a brow, clearly unimpressed. “That’s _swell_ , isn’t it? At least I know who to look to for gossip.”

Fighting the heat rising to his cheeks, Steve keeps his head stubbornly high. “We have a student meeting at five tomorrow.”

“And you can trust me to not be there,” Stark says.

He turns away from them to walk down the hall to the elevators, steps light and uncaring. The students part for him, gawking at the newcomer and his bodyguard. Nick Fury’s Avengers Academy was known for its excellence, not the excitements in campus, which made everyone exceedingly curious and desperate for news.

“What a _dick_ ,” Bucky passionately curses.

Steve shrugs. “We were kind of dicks first.” Fair was fair.

Sam swats at both of them. “ _Priorities._ Do you think he’ll burn that shirt if he knows you drew it? Or do you think he’ll help us fundraise?”

“Come on,” Steve picks up his forgotten guitar case from the floor. “Band practice first. We need to figure out auditions.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you scared off our last pianist,” Sam points out. “Dugan was _good_.”

“We had Sitwell as a short-term substitute, but guess who scared _him_ off?” Steve teases back, grateful for the distraction. He knows he has a responsibility to all students, which as Fury had emphasized in a briefing yesterday now included Stark.

But he can come to that headache later.

For now, he’ll lose himself in music, and in the easiness that came with his friends. 

* * *

Tony sighs, flipping his laptop open.

With Happy settling in across the hall, he’s alone with his horrible bed and the horribly plain beige – _beige_ – curtains. The cabinets and closets at least seemed to be new, because Pepper had taken one look during her inspection and drew her line at putting his hundred-thousand dollar suits inside ‘centuries-old-travesties filled with mothballs’.

Of course, they could’ve foregone everything if he had chosen to side with the truth, but when the King had ordered Tony to see the realities of a world outside his own, he had wanted to turn a trap into freedom.

Without having to maintain royal etiquette or the burden of hundreds of thousands of lives on his shoulders, Tony fully intended to take advantage of this soiree.

The official story was that he’d gone on a royal sabbatical to find his inner peace – or whatever bullshit it was that his loveliest Chief of Staff Pepper had cooked up – after a disastrous year of rebellious scandals meant to infuriate Howard.

Tony preferred it if their kingdom _didn’t_ secretly support wars, thank you very much. If he chose to rebel against that and the stuffy advisors such as Chancellor Stane who insisted on the old norms, then it was his choice and his life and his people's future.

A truce had been reached, and the price was him learning the nitty-grittyness of life outside the palace.

Since his face was far too recognisable in their own kingdom, there was leeway to choose his temporary exile, especially when their small island nation often preferred to stay out of maps and few would recognise their kingdom. Lurking in the shadows was the opposite of what an ego-boosted King like Howard was expected to do, but Tony has come to realise that the shadows carried a lot more dark than he feared.

The Avengers Academy was the opposite of dark: it had Bruce Banner, someone who might finally teach Tony something, and it had the very famously secretive Howling Commandos band that he itched to meet. One of Tony’s first acts as a King would be to make their song _Temptress_ his country’s national anthem.

Monarchy was _overrated_ , but he’d appreciate it if people didn’t try to shove him into boxes before meeting him.

Tony scowls at the memory of Rogers’ voice.

His laptop lights up, and –

“Good afternoon, sir,” JARVIS greets, “you have three voicemails from Lady Potts, a message from Lord Rhodes, and a decree from the King.”

“Whatever Howard wants to say, Pep will yell at me about it later,” Tony swipes away the list. “And whatever Rhodey wants to tell me, he can say verbatim.”

“Calling Lord Rhodes,” JARVIS dutifully acquiesces, and as the call dials, Tony picks out the song _Misfits_ from the _Commandos’_ latest album. The familiar guitar solo mixing with a metal keyboard helps drown out his annoyance enough so he can get to work.

If he’s going to be living in this dump for a year, it’s going to need some _major_ upgrades.

* * *

“What the _hell?_ ” Natasha glares up at the ceiling, her violin bow creaking under her grip.

There’re bits of dust falling from above, growing together with the ceaseless whirring driving her mad. She can’t practice when she can’t even _listen_ to her own music.

“Welcome to our world,” Sam mutters from his makeshift blanket tent.

Steve has given up on his own guitar, preferring instead to work on his essay for Art History 302. He’ll leave the task of murdering Stark to Natasha, who can most definitely do it faster and cleaner – there’s very little interest on his part to pick two fights with the man on his first day here.

Except, Nat turns to him, waving her bow in his face accusingly. “You’re the Student Body President,” she half-yells over the loudness. “Go deal with that.”

“Why me?” Steve groans. “I have homework to do.”

“Because you volunteered to be Fury’s goody-two-shoes, Rogers,” she puts her violin down and drags Steve off the couch by the collar of his shirt. “I had to deal with Rumlow in Basic Training, I’ve met my asshole quota for the day.”

Bucky gives him a very supportive, very useless two thumbs up.

Steve sighs. “ _Fine_ , but you’re doing all the admin paperwork for the rest of the month.”

Sometimes – and by sometimes he means most of the time – he thinks the universe is conspiring against him. He had gotten into Avengers Academy through a scholarship, but the scholarship required that he drape himself in a flag to act as a symbol of the American Dream: a sickly child of an Irish immigrant defeating all odds to study the beauty of art.

With the fame being ridiculously overwhelming, he and his friends had decided to keep themselves anonymous when their small band _The Howling Commandos_ peaked on Billboard’s Top 100 Songs, but their anonymity only garnered their songs even more fame. It was pure luck that everyone at the Academy had agreed to maintain the secrecy, although Sam loved to tease that it was Steve’s inspiring charm which kept people loyally silent.

Now, it seemed his position as star student of the Academy meant he needed to deal with what seemed to be their new resident troublemaker. After Natasha had made Barton see the light, Steve had hoped he wouldn’t have to encounter a similar situation again.

However, as he’s pointed out, the universe seems highly stubborn in its intent to thwart him.

Climbing up the flight of stairs to the top floor previously reserved for storage purposes, he winces at the increasingly loud drill assaulting his ears and bangs his fist hard on the recently restored door marked with the number _349_.

Too late, he remembers he might have to deal with Stark’s bodyguard too, but the noise stops after a few more seconds and the red door swings open with a painful creak. Steve crosses his arms, unimpressed by the large googles on Stark’s face and the headphones hanging on his neck.

“What?” Stark has the audacity to sound clueless.

Resisting the urge to peek over Stark’s shoulder into the messy room, Steve tries his best to sound as flat and impartial as he can with the beginnings of a migraine rearing in his head. “If you don’t stop whatever it is you’re doing, I’m going to have to file a noise complaint.”

Stark rolls his eyes, leaning against the doorframe. “Listen, Sean – ”

“Steve. My name’s Steve.”

“Listen, Steven,” Stark doesn’t miss a beat, “I had to call my Chief of – my friend with internet that made his face look like a dark blurry blob. I’m doing you all a big favour by rescuing the dire state of your broadband, so I’d appreciate it if you let me continue my good work in peace.”

“You’re – _what?_ ”

“The internet sucks. I’m unearthing the cables from the walls. In an hour, you can download your porn a thousand times faster.”

“I don’t watch porn,” Steve feels his cheeks redden, surreptitiously pinching the back of his thigh to get himself to _focus._

“And what a dreadful life that must be,” Stark drawls smugly.

“People are trying to study. They are trying to sleep. Trying to enjoy a _peaceful_ dinner,” he grits out, taking a deep breath for good measure. Lawsuits were _bad_ , and Bucky would never let him live it down if he was sued for losing his temper. “If you don’t cease and desist, we’ll be forced to take further action.”

Snapping off his goggles, Stark rolls his eyes again. “Alright, Mr. President. I’ll cease and desist.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll cease and desist _in an hour_ ,” Stark smiles, all teeth and no truth.

Steve just barely stops himself from throwing his hands in the air. He refuses to let this dishevelled, spoiled boy get the pleasure of seeing him annoyed. “Why are you doing this?”

For a moment, he expects another witty retort, but he gets a genuinely confused frown instead from Stark. “I told you. The internet’s bad. If something can be fixed, then it _should_ be fixed. Unless you want me to leave out your room in the improvements.”

“And you can fix the internet using…” Steve trails off, dubiously eyeing the wrench in Stark’s greasy hands, and the _Howling Commandos_ shirt that Stark hadn’t changed through the day. “Using whatever ungodly thing is making that noise?” he finishes lamely.

Stark balks. “Take that back. DUM-E isn’t ungodly, he’s only unworldly.”

“Who are you calling a _dummy?_ ” Steve asks incredulously. _Christ almighty_ , that migraine was coming in fast.

“Oh no, I – come here, you bucket of bolts.” There’s a curious _beep-beep_ , and the scraping of wheels over the rough tiled floor. Then, a claw emerges from over Stark’s shoulder, dangling a screwdriver between its metal pincers. “This is DUM-E,” Stark introduces almost shyly – which is jarring, because Steve didn’t know the man was capable of shyness – “and DUM-E, this is our beautiful landlord Steven.”

The claw extends outward, nearly punching Steve’s forehead in its excitement.

“He’s asking for a handshake,” Stark explains with a laugh after Steve attempts to dodge the claw of death for a few minutes. “Consider it a truce from him. DUM-E’s still learning how to drill.”

“I – did you build this?” Steve has never conversed with a robot before, and he can’t deny the growing awe. Palm up, he reaches out to let the robot – DUM-E – nudge its claw into it in a surprisingly gentle gesture.

True to Stark’s words, with DUM-E away from the hole in the wall, the whirring noise is absent, and Stark ducks his head, pleased. “He’s my accidental child. If a fire alarm rings, you can safely assume he put motor oil in the blender again.”

Blinking blankly at the prospect of having to field multiple fire alarms and subsequent evaluations, Steve reassesses his charitability. As cute as the robot was, he preferred having his sleep undisturbed.

“One hour, Stark,” he pulls his hand away from the claw. “Fix whatever you have to fix, and if in an hour you’re still keeping the entire dorm up, you can safely assume I’ll take action.”

Stark’s soft smile twists into something harsher. “And you can safely assume I’ll continue ignoring you.”

* * *

Classes are – predictably – easy.

Making friends is… considerably harder. Pepper flies over from the kingdom to sit him down sternly, lecturing him that this in an opportunity to meet new people, especially people who may or may not graduate Avengers Academy to become powerful allies across the world.

But aside from Janet’s bubbly personality paired with her Van Dyne legacy and Bruce’s whipsmart mind, Tony hasn’t had much success in getting people to like him. Despite his efforts in fixing the appalling dormitory infrastructures, the student body is adamant in maintaining their distrust of the foreigner while whispering gleefully about Tony’s latest actions.

He’s tired of seeing Loki and Amora spreading gossip, and he says as much to Pepper, only to have a recruitment poster shoved in his face.

“You’ve always loved the Howling Commandos. And you might as well put your million-dollar music lessons to some good use.”

Fully aware that he sounds like the petulant child Obie demands he grow up from, Tony sighs. “What if they don’t like me? I’d rather enjoy their music without knowing if they’re assholes or not.”

The cinch, of course, is Steve Rogers’ posse of overachieving friends. It doesn’t matter how much Bruce or Jan insists that ‘ _Steve is nice, he’s just used to being the little guy, and defending people from the big guys_ ’, Tony thinks it’s unfair that he has to be judged by a small part of himself. Since the end of their temporary truce – and Tony regretted introducing his child bot to someone with a stick so far up their ass – Rogers seemed adamant to knock Tony down a peg.

To put it shortly, their mandatory basic physical training, fondly dubbed ‘sparring sessions’ by the students, were an absolute hell for Tony.

Does it matter that he has a black belt in various martial arts? He’s discovered very painfully that no, it doesn’t matter because Rogers fights by throwing things. And Barton uses a bow and arrow. Who even _does_ that anymore?

If they knew that he was a Crown Prince – no.

That would be worse.

Tony has had enough of people like Ty and Sunset and Whitney and the long list of ‘suitors’ lining up back home. Better to have a few friends who were true and kind.

At least Jan appreciates Tony’s inclination for softer clothes and the smooth needlefelt carpet he installed over the rough floor of his room. He’s rich, and he’s secretly revolutionised clean energy for the world. Who can blame him for a few indulgences?

(Steve Rogers, apparently.)

Pepper refills their coffee cups, gazing out over the sprawling school grounds through Tony’s window. “Give it a chance,” she puts her hand on his shoulder. “I know you haven’t played any music since Queen Maria’s final service, but she would have wanted you to be happy.”

“I miss her,” Tony confesses. Here, away from the grand palaces and heavy crowns, he knows his mother would have been truly happy to stand in the sun and touch lives in a way that Howard’s increasing obsession with control didn’t let her.

“I’m here for you,” Pepper squeezes his shoulder. She had known the Queen for only a handful of months before the accident, but there was a grace to Maria that shined like a sun amidst Howard’s clouds – a grace that was now reflected in Pepper. “And who knows,” she adds, “you might find someone here who’ll make you a happy, honest man.”

“You know I’m always honest,” Tony replies with a soft smile. In another life, Pepper would make an excellent Queen – he has half a mind to abdicate, naming her his successor. Obie and Howard would no doubt lose their minds, and that was as good a reason as any to do something.

“You’re always honestly trying to drive me mad,” Pepper laughs.

“Who else gets to add spice to your life?”

“The cook, and whoever happens to warm my bed,” she drains her cup. “Is that all Your Highness, Prince of Fire Extinguishers?”

“I resent that, Lady Potts,” Tony joins in her laughter.

Knowing he isn’t alone is a comfort. Knowing that she is covertly dismantling the kingdom’s network of weapons-selling is a relief. Knowing that she cares enough to carve out her vacation days to fly out to him?

It’s a warmth that buoys him enough to even smile at Rogers as he heads for class, and to look back at the band recruitment poster, seriously considering to give it a shot.

* * *

Natasha is a traitor. Steve will maintain that to his dying day.

Suspicion had been aroused when she insisted on coming to the next round of auditions even when it was her day off from the band – “I can do my forensics essay just fine in the studio, Steve, or are you doubting me?”

There’s a small line of students already loitering outside the studio when they get there, but that quickly dwindles down to one adequate candidate. Freshman Coulson had potential, though his skill apparently laid more in the cello than the piano melodies they needed.

“Can’t we do the next album without a pianist?” Steve groans, eyeing the rough lyrics for their planned singles _All Day_ and _Make Way for Tomorrow_. “We could always make these as rock songs – Thor can play the drums?”

Traitorous as she is, Natasha shakes her head. “We did all the guns ablazing metal already. The people want something new.”

“By the people, you mean you’d like for your violin to be heard over Thor’s drums,” Steve presses a few notes of the piano wryly. He had never been able to afford a piano as a child, and now he struggles to sit still long enough to learn it. Between art classes and this band and trying to lead the campus’ unruly students, there are few days for him to breathe long enough.

“I mean that there’s a finesse to playing these string instruments that should be appreciated,” she replies loftily, “and _you_ with your guitar should know.”

“Well – ”

“Glad to see you made it, Stark.”

Steve spares only one second of betrayed disbelief at Natasha’s smugly pleased face before he whips around, staring at the open door and the short, scrawny man wearing an immaculate black suit standing there.

Do all his conversations with Stark have to involve a door?

“ _You’re_ auditioning?” Steve blurts out, unable to quite reign in his disbelief. The greasy, coffee-fuelled gollum living one floor above them could not possibly play the piano any better than Clint – okay. Deep breaths.

Fury has told him to ‘ _get on with the program before I take out the get-along shirt_ ’ when wind reached the Dean about the mini-feud between Steve and Stark, and Steve is _trying_.

He’s tried to teach Stark how to spar, but Stark found it condescending. He’s tried inviting Stark to the biweekly briefings on student life, but Stark found it beneath him to attend. He’s even tried to help the bodyguards to help make Stark feel safer; maybe Stark was acting as an ass only out of fear, but that hadn’t gotten Steve anywhere either.

Whatever it is that convinced Natasha to let Stark this close to their secret band, he would very much like to know.

In perfect Stark fashion, he ignores Steve’s question, lobbing another one back. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Where’s your army of bodyguards?” Steve gives as good as he gets. From the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha nonchalantly flipping her textbook, the very picture of innocence.

Stark glances up, clearly exasperated. “Do you _really_ find me that distasteful?”

“I find the idea of a rich ruling class outdated and elitist.”

“That wasn’t what I asked you.”

“Why are you even asking me?”

“People seem to listen to your opinions, Mr. America – no, _Captain_ America – that’s the nickname they have for the campus darling?” Stark says, and the most annoying thing isn’t Stark’s puffed up chest. It’s how unruffled he looks in that suit.

Steve can _feel_ Natasha’s smugness grow. “Fine,” he concedes, because he knows very well that if he kicks Stark out the door, his own ass would be kicked out by Natasha. Not a very pleasant experience, and he knows that personally. His mother would also have his ear for not treating his guests right, so, stepping away from the baby grand piano, he sits down across the room from Nat. “We’ll see how well you play.”

Eyes flashing, Stark doesn’t budge from the doorway. “You can’t possibly be the Howling Commandos.”

“Either play or leave. You’re getting the cold air in,” Steve shrugs, feeling a small twinge of glee at having confused Stark, who glances warily at Nat then defiantly turns back to Steve.

“ _Fine_.”

Door swinging shut, he expects Stark to pull out a very expensive tablet or sheet music printed on scented paper from one of his suit pockets, but Stark merely sits, hands hovering the slightest bit above the keys: a hesitance that makes Steve frown.

Stark was the most cocky, insufferable man alive, and he made sure the entire Academy’s science department knew of his genius. For Stark to be hesitant meant either his bluff was about to be called or he truly wanted to join the Howling Commandos. Steve doesn’t know which outcome he prefers, but –

_Gaspard de la nuit_.

The first lonely notes are unmistakable, the pedal amplifying them before they soar into a cacophony of melodies as Stark’s hands race across the keys, dancing over the blacks and whites with an intensity that brims the music through Steve, ringing in his ears and his chest until he can’t _breathe_.

Eyes closed and face relaxed to the softest smile that Steve has ever seen on him, Stark looks _beautiful_. He’s swaying slightly to the music, and even in the bright lights of the studio, Steve can picture Stark in grand concert halls, an audience of hundreds of thousands of people enraptured by a single man.

Only Stark would have the arrogance to play one of the hardest music pieces ever written, and only _he_ would have the sheer stubbornness needed to actually accomplish it with such finesse.

The melody dwindles down into a few sombre notes.

Stark’s eyes snap open; Steve can only gaze back, transfixed by how his hands continue to coax note after endless note on the piano – the final two notes are held on longer than necessary, Stark’s soft smile fading away into a self-satisfied grin, but even that grin is different from the mocking one usually reserved for Steve – and the itch to draw is _strong_ , to take pencil on paper and trace the lines of Stark’s perfectly straight back, to capture the frenzied life spilling onto the canvas of the piano.

“Is that to your satisfaction?” Stark raises a brow, finally letting go of the notes and the pedal, leaving the room eerily silent.

Snapping out of his trance is difficult, the lilting chords still echoing in his head, but Steve does manage to stand up even as Natasha continues to stare thoughtfully at Stark.

“Who taught you?” Steve asks, unable to summon up any bitterness. _Why aren’t you famous for this? How did you learn? What else can you do?_

The questions linger unspoken as he struggles to keep them in, sheepish as he feels guilt rise up.

“My mother,” Stark answers, turning away to play a few lone notes on the piano: two C’s, two G’s and two A’s – the beginnings of _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_. “So,” he perks back up, a mask falling into place, “ _are_ you the Howling Commandos? Cause that would suck, but also, kinda makes sense because Miss Romanov there _is_ a temptress.”

How had Steve never noticed those masks? Was he truly as blind to Stark as Fury had chastised him for? Feeling guilt roil even more, he turns to Natasha, who makes a ‘ _what can you do?_ ’ shrug, which roughly translates into ‘ _if you don’t get him on the band, I’ll castrate you_ ’.

“Yeah,” Steve admits, standing up to offer a hand to Stark. “And, uh, truce?” It’s never easy admitting his wrongs, but he was raised right. “I’m sorry for all the misunderstandings.”

Scrunching his nose, Stark remains seated on the piano bench. “I don’t like being handed things.”

“Your bodyguard hands you coffee every morning, Stark,” Steve keeps his hand obstinately in the air.

Stark’s frown turns confused. “You noticed that?”

“Pretty hard to not notice the Men in Black, Stark,” he eyes Natasha’s traitorous red curls, her head now ducked carefully into her textbook again. “Besides, if we’ll be working together, I think it’s high time I got to know you better, to know you right.”

Shuffling on his feet, Stark pulls out his sunglasses from inside his suit.

Steve used to think that they were a brazen show of wealth, but as Stark slips it over his brown eyes, Steve realises that it’s only another layer of armor that he failed to see through.

“If you’re going to be my Captain,” Stark stands up at last, “then you should call me Tony.”

“Tony,” Steve tries out the name. A peace offering. “Sounds less of an asshole than Stark.”

Tony actually laughs at that, and Steve thinks they might actually make it through this peacefully.

* * *

“No, Hap.”

“It’s royal protocol, Boss. Everyone you have regular contact with must be vetted for.”

Rubbing his temples wearily, Tony stops them by the small fountain in front of the studio’s door. His security team is _not_ going in there to interrogate the entire band. That wouldn’t go down very well with any of them, much less Steve, and he wants his first impression to be good. They’re the Howling Commandos. He’s blasted their music through the palace’s East Wing for the past three years, yelled them on top of his lungs to rile his father up.

Naturally, he feels a connection with them that he doesn’t want to ruin by his posse of black suits.

“They’re kids. _Undergrads_ ,” Tony channels his air of royal authority as best as he can while wearing a campus hoodie. “They’re not planning the assassination of a monarch from a small land they probably can’t find on a map. Besides, Steve got up to my room without you noticing _and_ I came to the audition without you noticing.”

Naturally, Happy stays immovable. That was most likely the reason Pepper had manhandled him into the position of Tony’s Chief of Security. “Rules are rules, Your Highness,” Happy smiles far too happily. “And due to your most recent security complaint, we’ll also be installing more surveillance cameras into the dormitories.”

_That_ wasn’t happening because 1) Happy is horrible with technology – at least when compared to Tony – and 2) seriously, is he really taking the surveillance approach to the man who patented satellite technology?

“Okay,” Tony decides to humor him, “just act cool because these kids are trained to shoot with a bow and arrow.”

“See? Not helping your case,” Happy makes a gesture at Tony’s neck, presumably to emphasize its vulnerability to stray arrows and angry buff Student Presidents.

Crossing the small lawn, Tony rolls his eyes when Happy insists on opening the door for him. As soon as the door swings open, he’s greeted by a cacophony of noise, the empty studio now filled with at least ten others – some sprawled on the floors, others perched next to each other on the piano bench, the entire room cheering on a long-haired blond thundering on the drums – he spots Steve squeezed on the couch between Barnes and Wilson, his laugh jostling the large bag of tortilla chips in his lap.

Tony blinks.

It looks so domestic, so _common_ that he’s afraid of stepping in.

Where does Tony fit in inside this group, this family?

This band that Tony’s listened to a million times over, their songs echoing so true that he had felt understood by this merry group of strangers. Misfits.

But he was raised to be able to forge ahead regardless of fear or hesitance or whatever reservations he might have, to be able to command a room’s attention and _lead_ it.

_Stark men are made of iron_ , he tells himself as he clears his throat pointedly above the noise.

The entire room swivels their heads towards the door.

No doubt they must be judging him and Happy’s presence.

Holding his back straight, he gives them his best smile. He went through the auditions, he has every right to be here as everyone else.

“Hi,” Tony says rather lamely, because he doubts ‘ _Greetings, gentlemen_ ’ will get him anywhere far with this group.

“Song Brother!” the drummer’s voice booms, and he marches forward to pat Tony’s shoulder –

Only to have Happy crash into him.

They fall to the ground in a loud scuffle as the others dodge out of the way in a chorus of gasps and curses. Steve steps up, fully intent on wrestling the two men apart, but Tony touches Happy’s shoulder first.

“Hap!” he hisses.

His all too faithful guard puts a hand on Tony’s chest, trying to push him away from the awkward angle on the ground, the drummer twisting Happy’s arm around. “Stay away, Boss!”

“Hap,’ Tony swats the hand back, mindful of the stares they’re getting. “He’s a _friend_.”

“Indeed,” the blond man says cheerfully on the ground. “I am Thor!”

Happy huffs. With one final glare at the drummer, he lets go and stands up properly. “I’m Head of the Cr – the Starks’ security,” he punctuates the introduction with a pointed pat on the chest of his suit where his redesigned badge hangs.

“Kindly forgive – I’m sorry for the fuss,” Tony rocks on the heels of his feet, hands clasped at his front in a practiced gesture of cordial formality.

“Your man put up a good fight,” Thor smacks Happy’s shoulder hard, and Tony might have taken offence at it if Thor’s laugh hadn’t broken through the tense muttering of the room. Slowly, the crowd returns to their previous spots, leaving Tony to stand tersely by the door.

He opens his mouth, but –

“So, you’re the new pianist,” a dark-haired girl speaks first. “I’m Shuri – the team’s sound engineer.”

“Tony,” he debates whether to walk over and shake her hand, but decides it’s too much of a formality. Instead, he heads over to the only empty spot: the corner behind the piano, next to an old guitar. “I liked what you did with the pop-synth-rock of the last album.”

A rumble of appreciative nods and thoughtful hums sweep through the room. Barnes plucks a string from Romanoff’s violin.

“Any idea how to make it better, Tony?” Steve asks from beside Barnes.

“What?”

“Just because something works, doesn’t mean it can’t be _improved_ ,” Shuri shrugs with a grin.

Tony’s eyes dart to where Happy is guarding the door. “Uh, I – you write _really_ good intros, but maybe, I dunno your songs are excellent. Just – you barely use any bridges in your songs, and the contrast can make your verses sound even better.”

“Ha!” Steve suddenly shouts, elbowing both Wilson and Barnes. “I _told_ you we shouldn’t have dropped the bridge for _Dancing Monkeys_ or _Freightcar_.”

“Shut up,” Barton says from across the room, “those still charted at number two.”

“Exactly, improvement needed.” Steve nods towards the guitar near Tony. “Pass that over?”

“You’re the guitarist?” Tony runs his hands carefully over the polished wood. _Holy shit_. He can’t resist strumming the first chords to their song _Temptress_ on its strings before sheepishly passing it to Steve.

As Prince, it was his duty to be a patron of the arts, to know the nooks and crannies of obscure topics so he would always understand at least a glimpse of what the people around him talked of. But this? This was something else entirely.

An untested realm of his short-lived freedom.

There was a jarring normalcy to everyone here, a lack of protocol that was refreshing and daunting and _fun._

“Vocalist and guitarist,” Steve confirms, then points at Barnes. “This guy can’t sing to save a life, but Wilson carries one hell of a tune, Thor’s really good with ballads, and Sharon can break glass with her voice.”

“Ah.” It might be too much in their faces, and too compromising for his secrets, to admit that he’s had singing, piano, guitar, violin, and harp lessons since he could barely walk. “Are you planning a new album?”

Steve raises a brow. “If you’re up for the task, Stark.”

Tony looks around the room, new faces he didn’t know and old faces he’s learning to know better and Happy’s guarded one frowning disapprovingly at this whole affair.

In six months, he’ll be back in the stifling silence of the palace and none of these people will ever get wind of the truth. He’s desperate to get to know them, to pick their brains and understand how they do it, how they make music that speaks of love, of passion and goodness and loneliness and _hope_.

And yet.

He’s setting himself up for friendships that’ll only end in heartache. Steve, in particular, will hate Tony for lying.

But if everything was going to hurt anyway, he might as well make the pain worth it.

Meeting Steve’s challenge is easy.

“When do we start?”

* * *

“You don’t understand,” Steve sighs.

Bucky has just finished telling a story about how Tony had outrageously bought one of their cleaning staff a new car after he caught wind of her struggling to get he child to school. That had come only three days after Tony had apparently thrown a feast for the families in the town surrounding the Academy.

If rumor was to be believed, Tony was either trying to bribe local officials for no explainable reason, or Tony had been moved by the struggles of a shopkeeper – to be precise, an adult toys shopkeeper – who found it difficult to feed their child.

Steve promised himself, however, that no matter how many people pestered him to take a stance against Tony’s flaunting of wealth, Steve would give Tony a chance to explain himself without prejudice. Still, he did understand why his most protective friends continued to doubt Tony's goodwill, especially when the internet offered depressingly little about the supposed heir to estates that didn't exist.

There was one Wikipedia page, with barely a paragraph about Tony Stark's prominence as a young engineer on the world stage and one line about his favorite book as a child. No Facebook page to check, or news articles about the engineering work that made him prominent. That, paired with Tony's secrecy and bodyguards, set Bucky on edge.

Sliding into the bench beside Bucky, Sam sips at his milkshake. “What don’t we understand?”

“Stevie has a crush,” Bucky grins.

“I do _not_ ,” Steve protests, flicking one of his fries at Bucky’s nose. Luckily, the bustling cafeteria of the A Building means few people care enough to notice the conversation. “Stark is just – we should give him a chance. We haven’t been fair to him.”

Less luckily, his friends can be single-minded in their pursuit of finding Steve a proper love life.

Sam smirks wider around his straw. “You’ve got it _bad_ , buddy.”

“You haven’t graduated yet,” Steve scowls. “Until you get that psychology degree, you’re not my therapist.”

“I don’t need a degree to sense sexual frustration,” Sam parries much to Bucky’s delight.

Steve tries another angle. “He’ll be gone in half a year. There’s no point.”

“Then you’ve got six months left to woo him,” Bucky jumps back in.

He’s pretty sure Sam is about to say something right back when a shadow lands over Steve’s plate, and the now not-so-foreign scents of coffee and grease hits Steve’s nose.

“To woo whom?”

“The bush on the other side of campus,” Steve blurts out before Bucky or Sam can say otherswise, definitely not squirming when Tony slides into the only empty spot: right next to Steve. “They’re, uh,” he glares at his friends to _shut it_ , “about to cut it down.”

“Hey, no judgement,” Tony laughs, “but are you sure you’ve exhausted all other options?”

“We’re heading out for some drinks after class if you wanna join,” Sam pipes up.

Tony glances away, picking at the cuff of his – his suit jacket. Why would Tony be dressed up like that in the middle of noon and why, _how_ does he look that good?

“Oh, no,” Tony says, oddly subdued, “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Steve insists. _You got it bad,_ Sam’s voice echoes in his head to his chagrin. He hasn’t gotten a crush on Tony Stark, thank you very much. Sue him for wanting to make amends for false assumptions.

“I only, uh, came by to say hi.”

“You’re always welcome.”

“Yeah,” Bucky nods. “Sorry for being a bunch of asses. We didn’t grow up with much, so it’s… hard. But you're one of the good ones.”

Visibly, Tony squirms in discomfort, guilty and nervous. “I can help. If you needed it. I have Adv – I have people and more stuff than I know what to do with.”

“No. _No_ ,” Steve shakes his head. “No buying us anything.” He wouldn’t know what to do with a car. “All you need to do is help us write songs.”

Tony nods jerkily. “Okay. I need to, um, attend a conference. So I’ll be gone for a week. But I’ll be back.”

“A week?”

“Yeah. Geneva’s pretty far from here.”

_Geneva?_ What was Tony doing wearing suits and attending conferences? He wants to ask, but suspects that even if he does ask, Tony wouldn’t give any of them a straight answer. 

“Fly safe,” Steve settles on saying. It’s neutral, friendly enough, and doesn’t convey how alarmingly handsome Tony looks in that suit – perfectly tailored like any rich man’s clothes would be, and worlds away from the ratty band shirts and hoodies Tony so often wears, but for once Steve can’t bring himself to be annoyed at the _rich_ part when his hindbrain insists on the _delicious_ part.

Tony’s face goes through a weird progression of emotions: confusion, worry, doubt – was that longing? – before landing on practiced indifference.

“Always do.”

* * *

Tony had hoped the studio would be empty when he got there. 

The Geneva trip had taken a lot out of him: wrangling with politicians was never something Tony enjoyed, and when it infringed on his supposed freedom, it was something he enjoyed even less.

When he gets to the studio, however, the light shining from under its door makes Tony hesitate.

There were few people who might be up past midnight practicing music, and he doesn’t think he can handle anything much, bone tired as he is. But Tony has gone through all that effort to sneak out past Happy, and he yearns for the familiar comfort of music and the memory of Maria after a week of catering to Howard’s ludicrous demands.

He just wants to be a normal kid, going to a normal school, making normal friends who aren’t the Viscount of some small principality with an ego the size of Mars or a Minister so and so chosen by somebody who clearly doesn’t care a shit about the people they represent.

Carefully, he pushes open the door.

“God, this doesn’t make any sense.”

That’s Steve, head bowed down and muttering over his guitar.

Part of Tony breathes a sigh of relief. As long as it isn’t Loki or Amora, he’ll survive. He recognises the set of chords that Steve is trying out, the chorus to their drafted song _Fight As One_ that hadn’t been able to come together yet.

" _I'm standing on my own, but now I'm not alone_ ," Steve mutters the lyrics under his breath, fingers plucking hard against the guitar strings, " _lost from when we wake, with no way to go back_." A long exhale. "Dammit."

Songwriting was never easy, and it's humbling to watch how the songs he loves so much comes into being through one man. Sure, the band played the songs, came together to piece their notes into an album, but this - this digging down to find the vulnerable truth, to share it with the world and say ' _you're not the only one_ '. Not the only one to feel this tired, this frustrated and happy and sad and angry and _hopeful_.

This was all Steve.

Listening to the strumming for a few moments longer, Tony braves stepping into the room.

“You’re missing a C chord there,” he points out.

The strumming stops, notes hanging in the air as Steve raises a brow. “I am _not_.”

Tony shrugs. He makes a beeline for the piano. Tonight isn't a night for fighting. “Not my problem.”

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks.

“Practicing music.” Should he play a waltz or a symphony? Running his hands gently over the white keys, Tony lets his fingers choose for him, and he presses on the first tune his mind comes up with, letting his eyes close to the music.

“You don’t have a private piano somewhere?” Steve’s voice must be raised, because there’s a rough edge to his voice.

Okay. No. Tony wants to play in peace, and he knows it’s unfair for him to invade the studio like this, but honestly, Steve can carry that guitar someplace else. Moving a piano isn’t that easy.

“I’d be happy to play _you_ like an instrument,” Tony suggests. Making Steve flustered was a quick way to distract the man, and he briefly wonders where this new wave of displeasure from Steve came from. 

He can hear Steve putting down his guitar and huffing. “Didn’t they teach you manners?”

“They did.” Around ten thousand hours of teaching. “Doesn’t mean I listened.” Tony starts playing the piano again, picking of on the A note he left off of. He’s several more notes in when his skin starts to prickle, and _this_ time, he turns to face Steve.

“Why’re you staring at me, Rogers?”

“I wasn’t.”

Tony rolls his eyes, tired and exhausted of people saying things they didn’t mean. Why couldn’t politics be as honest and reliable as gears and machines? “Didn’t know your golden heart was capable of lying.”

He nearly laughs when Steve’s mouth opens and closes, then opens again.

“Okay, _fine_.” Steve fiddles with a nearby pen, and it’s almost adorable to see the large hunk of a man be drowned by a blue knitted sweater. “We just – we don’t know who you are. You like coffee, but you’ve only ever talked about your family _once_. You have a bodyguard, and we all reckon you’re a genius, but no one can find any articles about your breakthroughs. You disappear for a week to _Geneva_ , and pop back here to disturb my songwriting process at what time is it even?” Steve tips his head sideways to read the clock on the far side of the room. “At one forty seven in the morning.”

“Does it matter?” Tony scowls.

This is why he hadn’t wanted to go to the energy conference in Geneva. All it ended up with were world leaders who scoffed at the ‘imagination’ of Tony’s nearly perfected arc reactor, and his new friends here – where he was because Howard had wanted Tony away from the kingdom – becoming suspicious.

Steve shrugs. “I want – _we_ want to know you.”

Tony’s hackles rise, too tired for this conversation, too tired to maintain all the lies and masks. “You think I’m hiding something?”

“We think we want to be your friend, but you won’t let us.”

_What?_ Maybe Rhodey had a point about sleep deprivation if Tony is dreaming up scenarios where Steve Rogers sweet talks him. “People like me don’t get friends like you,” he emphasizes each word carefully.

“Then why did you even bother joining the band? Or come study here?”

There’s a sharpness to Steve’s gaze that Tony can’t escape, and a genuinely confused kindness that Tony desperately wants to reach out and take - but knows it would be cruel if he did. He can let himself be hurt by how their brief friendship will inevitably end; he won’t accept letting everyone else be hurt too.

Of course, this farce could all end with Tony admitting the truth, but he doubts Steve will take kindly to the growing pile of little lies Tony has had to make to keep the truth hidden. JARVIS rerouting their internet searches on him, the Royal Guard's extensive secret background checks - he doubts he himself would take well if subjected to those measures.

And yet, Steve continues to pin Tony with that look of wary compassion that Tony's tired bones give up fighting.

He slumps in his seat.

"I came here to be myself," he sighs. Look how well that plan had turned out. "And I came _here_ ," he emphasizes the studio, "to be by myself."

Unceremonious of him to kick out his band leader, but he's done with pretenses. He wants to stop being someone else, wants to end this charade and this useless experiment. What did it say about him that he found it easier to be Prince Anthony rather than a simple man?

Tony Stark.

Maybe Howard was right. Maybe Tony had nothing other than the crown, than Pepper who ran the palace household for him and Rhodey who was kind enough to keep Tony company.

He's been at the Academy for three months, and he only has Janet van Dyne - who herself was another rich socialite - and Bruce Banner and half the cleaning staff to show for as friends. 

Sure, he was starting to get along with the other band members, like Shuri who was a genius beyond her years and Thor's refreshingly loud boisterousness, but he was also sure they wouldn't blink an eye if he left.

Why can't the universe let him take comfort in one of his last refuges? Music, and the memories of his mother.

"Hey."

Tony's head jerks up.

Somehow, Steve is standing in front of him. The guitar is left on the couch, and Steve's hand lands on Tony's shoulder.

"What're you doing?" Tony blinks blankly at him, scrambling to gather himself.

"Scoot over."

Seeing no reason to say no, and honestly not feeling like getting into an argument, Tony acquiesces silently, waiting until Steve settles next to him on the piano bench and speaks again.

"As the student president, it's my responsibility to make sure everyone in this campus doesn't feel alone."

_And I'm the Prince of a small island nation that supplies a third of the world's weapons through backchannels_. "I don't need your misguided sympathy."

Frown becoming deeper, Steve bumps their shoulders together. "As your new friend, I'm sure whatever it is that's bothering you is going to go away." He clears his throat. "I didn't mean to push you or pry, I just - I'm just trying to understand, and I do understand you have your reasons for wanting to be private."

That was... unexpected. Tony sneaks a proper glance at Steve. Ridiculously strong, ridiculously good at self-defense combat, and struggling too to live a life free of the trappings of fame that came with being the centre of the latest global music boom.

Maybe the two of then weren't so different after all, always hiding parts of themselves to keep the rest of their sanity, their truths, their hearts safe.

"I didn't have the easiest time growing up," Tony feels ridiculously spoiled to say that. Royalty was a privilege. "And I'm still trying to find myself."

Steve nods. "Work in progress. Art always takes time."

Scoffing, Tony starts to press a few stray notes on the piano again, right foot pressing on the pedal so that they ring louder than his heartbeat. "I doubt you'd find my truth to be an art of beauty."

He expects Steve to give him a rebuke, or to get an annoyingly optimistic speech about how everyone had beauty in their own ways.

Instead, what he gets is Steve's hand brushing against his as it lands on the black and white keys.

"Can you teach me?" Steve asks. "I only know where the middle C is, and I won't be able to finish the guitar chords anyway."

Tony stares at him. "Teach you?"

"Probably not _Gaspard de la nuit_ , but I have good memory. I'm sure I'll pick it up fast."

Dubiously, Tony directs Steve to the proper way to place his hand, carefully curling his own hand around Steve's wrist to get the angle right.

All the while, he feels Steve's hot breaths puff against his skin, and the even hotter press of Steve's thighs against his on the narrow piano bench. 

Face scrunched up in concentration, Steve tries to follow Tony's left hand as he goes through each note, pausing at F sharp when Steve starts to overextend.

"No, tuck your thumb under to press _Fa_ , then you can - yes, that's it. Pointer finger for _Sol_ , and your pinky for the next _Do_ ," Tony finds himself smiling back at Steve. One octave is hardly difficult to play, but it's unexpectedly nice to have someone excited with him about the piano and not the next set of explosives.

"I'm guessing a song is much harder than that."

When Tony shrugs, his elbows knock with Steve's. " _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_ isn't that hard to play." He nudges at Steve's thumb until it comes back to the middle C. "Here, like this."

"Up above the sky so high," Steve hums, low baritone voice carrying loud in the empty studio, "like a diamond in the sky," he presses on _La_ together with Tony, and starts to play the verse again, more confident in the keys he presses. "When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon - "

"Then you show your little light," Tony joins in, throat dry. "How I wonder what you are."

"Like that?" Steve asks, and Tony has to clear his throat because in the tiredness of his body, his mind decided that the familiarness of Steve's singing was a soothing balm, so much so that he struggles to stop himself from leaning onto Steve's very broad, very comfortable looking shoulders.

"Exactly like that."

Steve nods, clearly pleased, but he takes Tony's hand off the piano keys, chin nodding towards the clock on the wall. It's nearly three in the morning. "You're tired."

"I'm not."

"Well, I am," Steve's smile all too-knowing. "We can walk to the dorms together?"

Knowing when he's beat, Tony sighs. He _is_ tired, and teaching Steve had been remarkably unwinding. "Alright."

They lock up, Tony taking extra care to cover the piano properly, and stroll through the eerily lit cobblestones that ring with each of their footsteps. The walk is short, but Steve offers Tony his jacket to help against the chill, which Tony refuses because he's not giving his hindbrain another reason to want to melt into the increasingly safe presence of the man next to him. His newest friend.

"The eighth song of the new album," Steve pipes up when they reach the glass entrance to the dorms, "we should call it _Nightlight_."

"It's your album," Tony presses their different floors on the elevator. "I'm just here to play the songs for you."

The gaze Steve sends him is quizzical. "Yeah." He tips his chin down, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Yeah." Doors sliding open, Steve sends Tony one last smile, crooked and the slightest bit shy. "Have a good morning."

Tony gives him a small wave. 

"Don't let the bed bugs bite."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: excessive use of evermore lyrics because it turns out that album was the muse i needed to finish this, but the other half of the lyrics here are my own. although i imagine the made-up nighlight song would sound like an evermore album track too, but without further ado, enjoy :)

Because the universe keeps trying to conspire against Steve, he gets coffee stained all over his shirt. His favorite white shirt that he loves to wear for training and that he keeps very safe from the paint of his art classes.

And it's exactly his luck that he looks up from his cursing to see Tony's extremely guilty face. “I am _so_ sorry,” Tony cringes.

Towering over Tony's shoulder, one of his bodyguards glowers at Steve, and on the other side of the sidewalk, Amora smirks twistedly at them, making Tony seem even guiltier. After all the progress he's made since Tony came home from his strange Geneva trip, Steve thinks it's unwise to throw everything out over some spilled coffee.

"It's alright," he takes the - was that an actual handkerchief? - greasy cloth Tony offers him to dab away some of the wetness of the coffee stain. 

"Do you have class?" Tony asks, bottom lip bitten.

"No, was just headed to the gym."

Tony's guilt fades considerably, and he rocks back on his heels. "Well, not like you need that much more exercise," Tony pats Steve's upper arm. "Come on, let me apologise properly. I've got stuff in my room."

Pushing down the heat in his cheeks, Steve tells himself that Tony probably wanted only to lend him a shirt, not at all what one might expect with a bedroom and ' _apologies_ '. 

“You realise my room is one floor down from yours and is therefore closer?” Steve says, waving off the offer.

Not letting him off the hook that easy, Tony grabs at Steve's arm and marches them both across the road to the dorms. “Your room doesn’t have fresh Swiss chocolate in stock, does it?”

"Boss," Tony's guard speaks up, "I need to do a full check on him before I let him up."

" _Happy_. Steve isn't going to murder me," raising a brow at Steve, Tony dryly questions, "you're not involved in a secret plot to murder me and steal all of my chocolates, are you?"

"No?"

In the end, they settle on a simple pat down that Happy gives to Steve with a highly suspicious frown, and gingerly Steve steps again over the threshold of Tony's bright red door. Less than a second later, Tony clicks the door shut in Happy's face and Steve gets a shirt thrown in _his_ face. 

"Aren't you going to look away?" Steve clutches at the shirt, struggling to keep it from DUM-E's claws. The robot is as friendly as it had been when Steve had first tried to shake its claw, and now that he can see the bot's wheels running effortlessly on carpet, it actually looks adorable.

"Do I really have to?" Tony waggles his eyebrows, but he _does_ avert his eyes.

Quickly, Steve exchanges one shirt for another, unsurprised when it smells like grease, but _is_ surprised when he notices it's one of the _Howling Commandos_ ' earliest merchandise shirts. He takes in the rich wallpaper around him, the soft carpet, and the clutter of mismatched gears, screwdrivers, bolts -- exactly what he'd expect of an heir to a grand fortune, but so different too.

His eyes land on a whiteboard stuffed in the corner, equations running through the entire length of it in letters that are clearly _not_ English.

“What’s this?” he points at it.

Tony has the courtesy to peek first before he fully turns back around when he spots the dry shirt stretching across Steve's chest. 

“I do study, you know. That's me solving one of the Millennium Prize Problems for fun," Tony heads over to the fridge next to the board, taking out a large box of what must be the promised chocolates. "Came here cause there’s a doctoral student – Bruce – he’s _ridiculously_ smart and I needed an excuse to pick his brain.”

“Bruce," Steve repeats blankly. "Aren’t you an undergrad?”

Tony barks out a laugh. “I wrote my Master’s thesis three years ago, Rogers. This is my second Doctorate.”

“But you’re – ”

“If you call me tiny, I’m going to have you executed.”

“You're an exchange student,” Steve finishes lamely. 

“Technically a visiting scholar or research fellow or whatever bureaucratic nonsense dictates.”

Tony offers him the chocolate, which Steve cautiously takes, barely suppressing a moan when it melts perfectly on his tongue, exactly as delicious as Tony had promised.

“So you’re, uh," he rolls the chocolate in his mouth, "dating Bruce?”

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” Tony chokes. “I said I wanted to pick his brain, not his heart.”

“Oh.”

Darting away from Tony's pinning gaze, Steve jumps between staring again at the equations to the laptops piled up in another corner to the posters stuck on the top-notch wallpapers.

“You’d make a horrible royal. I mean, horrible rich person," Tony sounds strangely flustered. "No small talk skills.”

“I dunno. I think I’d look good in a crown.” Steve smiles.

“Honey, you should see _me_ in a crown.”

“I don’t think your head would fit in one.”

"You'd be surprised."

"No," Steve backtracks, because he's doing all this wrong. He was trying to be friends, not throw Tony's goodwill out the window. "Your head's gotta be pretty big for all that math."

"Was that a compliment, Rogers?" Tony closes the chocolate box, drumming his fingers over its lid.

"Maybe," he teases with a shrug, "or maybe I'm just grateful. I just got a free _Howling Commandos_ shirt from Tony Stark."

Tony scrunches his nose. "You did not get a shirt. You borrowed it."

Nodding his chin at Tony’s _Commandos_ poster, he says, "you know, I drew that poster. And the design for this shirt.”

Tony’s eyes widen. “Did you?” He coughs. "I liked the motifs of fire and ice."

"Yeah?"

"It's a balance. The bright and the dark, chasing each other in circles - it was actually a muse - an inspiration for one of my reactors."

That adds even more questions to his large pile regarding Tony, and he asks the least obtrusive. "You work in clean energy?"

For a moment, he thinks Tony will dodge the question as Tony always dodges questions about life outside the Academy.

"Clean energy, robotics, the whole package."

"That's... that's a lot," Steve tugs at the end of his shirt, stilted. "And you're - wow."

"I'm just trying to do my best," the strangely flustered note returns to Tony's words, "like you do your best to write songs and draw posters."

Steve ducks his head. "I can't understand you," he admits, "but you're - " _funny, smart, handsome, kind,_ "good," he settles on saying.

Huffing, Tony shoves the chocolate box into Steve's hands. "You can have the whole box, as long as you return the shirt."

"You know," Steve smiles, "I could sign that poster for you."

"You would?"

"Why didn't you get a signed one in the first place?"

Tony scratches the back of his head. "There were people who really wanted them but couldn't buy them, so I might've, um, given the signed ones away?"

"Give me a pen," Steve firmly says.

Carefully, Tony peels the poster off the wall, and Steve ponders what to write. It's when Tony glances away to wrestle a fire extinguisher away from DUM-E that Steve flips the poster over, scribbling on the back corner, the blue sharpie bright against the plain white.

By the time Tony turns around again, Steve is putting the final touches to his signature on the front side of the poster. 

Tony smiles wide, and Steve decides to add a smiley face next to his name. 

* * *

"Why don't we strip it down?" Tony suggests, taking the headphones off. "Thor, I love your drums but it's distracting from the lyrics."

"Seconded," Bucky picks at his cello string, tuning it. 

"I'm not one hundred percent with the lyrics, though," Natasha pipes up. " _And when I was shipwrecked, in the starlight I thought of you?_ There's something missing there."

Steve looks up from his guitar. "The song's called _Nightlight_ , so I like having the light element. What about ' _in the cracks of light I thought of you_ '? It's more raw."

"What about ' _in the cracks of light, I dreamed of you_ '?" Tony counters.

Natasha snaps her fingers. "That's the one."

Tony grins, and he leans into it when Sam bumps their shoulders together, offering Tony a new mug of coffee. "The me who doubted you?" Sam says, "He's dying of embarrassment. You found yourself a powerhouse pianist, Steve."

"Would a guitar-piano duet work?" Bucky suggests, "it can be a quiet song, eye of the hurricane clarity kind of thing in the middle of a louder album."

"What do you think?" Steve challenges Tony, the fervor in him irresistible.

"Are you doubting me, Rogers?" Tony meets the task head on. He feels victorious, to have finally won not only the band's trust, but their friendship too. 

Beyond his titles, beyond his palace, there were people who liked him for _him_.

"Never," Steve promises with startling ease. "Let's start from the top?"

They go at it for a while longer, until the sun starts to come up and Thor's snores grow too loud to record their music any longer. Gamely, Tony offers to buy everyone some breakfast, but they decline, inviting Tony up instead to their shared dorm much to Happy's displeasure. 

It's vastly different from Tony's room which Pepper designed and renovated: with a sitting room in the center leading to three two-person bedrooms, their dorm room was more an apartment than a dorm, cluttered in a homely manner, with clothes strewn over the couch - was that bright red lingerie? - and a fridge smaller than the one Tony had upstairs. 

From that fridge, they take out pizza, Steve handing an especially large slice to Tony, who holds onto the cold of it with surprise. He hadn't expected this, and without the veil of working together on music, he doesn't know how well he'd fit into their easy conversations, and the teasing when Thor strips right there in front of them all before walking into the fourth door, which by the sound of running water seconds later must be the bathroom.

"You'll want to eat before Thor comes back and finishes everything," Steve says, pulling Tony down by the elbow.

Half falling onto the couch, Tony barely manages to keep his hold on the pizza, biting gingerly into it. "There are four boxes of pizza," he dubiously says.

"And there's seven of us," Steve laughs. "Thor can finish two easily on his own."

"I, uh, shouldn't stay long," Tony squirms.

"It's a Saturday, and even someone with two doctorates can rest."

Sam whistles. "Two doctorates?"

"Only one," Tony tries to brush it off, "doing my second right now."

"That's already two too many," Bucky's voice is muffled by the pizza, "but damn, Stark."

Steve sends Tony a conspiratorial wink. "He likes machines like you do, Buck."

Both of Bucky's brows rise up. "Can you build a flying car?"

Tony rolls his eyes at Steve. "I can build a flying aircraft carrier."

"Steve, I'm hijacking your man," Bucky announces, which makes Tony squirm even more, because he's not Steve's man or anything, is he?

Sure, Steve had chosen to give Tony a chance with the band, but it's been made clear from the very first day that Steve dislikes Tony, no matter how much friendlier Steve had gotten lately.

With practiced skill in bowing gracefully out of gatherings and state dinners, Tony manages to free himself from their impromptu pizza party, and their warm welcome that felt too warm - warmer than Tony ever had, with a sincerity that was too real, too close to what Tony wanted.

In the silence of his own room, he gets JARVIS to play AC/DC, unable to stomach listening to any songs that Steve had written, not when Steve's soft voice sung in melodies too inviting. 

"Do I have any duties on schedule?" he asks his AI.

"A call with Lord Rhodes on the Kingdom's defenses in an hour, followed by a meeting with Secretary of State Pierce and Chancellor Stane on the matter of treaties, and the Privy Council tonight."

"Wake me up in an hour then," Tony groans, flopping on the bed. Saturdays meant no classes, which meant Howeard enjoyed reminding him that he could never quite be free of his titles and his kingdom.

Which meant he could never have someone like Steve.

Someone who was kind despite their flaws, someone who believed in the good truth and would despise the politics Tony was tangled up in, someone who wrote songs from the heart, who would burn down policies calculated by ruthless minds. 

But Tony didn't need anyone else, anyway.

He had Rhodey and Pepper. That was enough.

All he needed to do was believe it.

* * *

Steve shouldn't be surprised that Bucky and Sam invited Tony over to their monthly coffee meetings. After Steve had admitted he missed the last one because Tony had spilled coffee all over Steve's shirt, they conspired to get Tony to attend their next one, clearly picking up on Steve's fascination for the genius.

Flashing Tony a smile usually reserved for the ladies, Bucky had bought Tony the sweetest cup of coffee the corner shop had, and Tony's delighted moan stirred something almost ugly in Steve, longing to reach out and wipe the foam off the corner of Tony's lips just for the sake of it.

"So," Sam kicks Steve's leg under the table, "we usually have these meetings to destress, get all our woes out and maybe find inspiration."

"It's usually just the three of you?" Tony asks.

"Nat loves tea religiously, Thor sometimes deigns to come along, Shuri says coffee is neo-colonialism, and Clint's usually on a rooftop we can't find," Bucky shrugs.

"Plus, it isn't quite a big enough place for the whole band," Steve adds. 

Across the table, Tony scratches the back of his neck. "I don't mean to intrude."

"Not at all," Steve rushes to tell him. Then, to get the ball rolling, he starts, "Amora's been lurking around our dorm building again, you think she's up to mischief?"

"Probably not. She's been doing things with Loki, if Thor's word is to be trusted," Bucky suggests, to which Sam scoffs.

"Thor believes everything Loki says, so it's more a question of whether Loki is to be trusted." Sam turns to Tony. "Spoiler alert: no. Never trust Loki."

"Yeah, I think I've learned that already," Tony laughs more easily, hand coming down to wrap around the large coffee cup. "Heard he did something that made Bruce mad. Bruce _never_ gets angry, but when he does - "

" - watch out," Bucky finishes with a laugh of his own. "We never quite managed to get the real story out of Bruce, although we _did_ have to fix the sidewalk after Loki made Bruce angry enough to dent it."

"Something to do with Loki messing up Bruce's Tesseract element research," Tony reveals, "never go near Bruce's experiments if you want to keep your head."

"And how did you get the story?" Sam leans in.

"Easy," Tony's smile turns into a playful grin, eyes turning bright gold in the morning sunlight, "I went near Bruce's experiments."

Sam shakes his head. "That's some courage right there."

The words form in Steve's mind, sudden, unexpected, knitting together into a scarf, warm around his neck until it becomes too tight, choking with his sudden jolt of want and jealousy because sitting like this with his friends and with Tony's laugh still ringing in his ears, he realises _I want to know him_ , and _I want to know what that sunkissed smile tastes like_.

An F chord, discordant and blending into a rougher F sharp, he climbs the melodies to their peak, the precipice staring up at him. _Turn my heart to liquid gold, let its rivers flow to - flow to the oceans of your smile, and across the great divide, on the horizon dawns - the sunrise of your thoughts._

"Steve?" Tony's voice crashes through his thoughts. "You with us?"

"Yeah," he makes his lips curve up. "Yeah."

"I was just saying I have an idea for the eleventh track on the album."

"Huh?"

"We have _Nightlight_ , and I thought we should have something about the sun to mirror it," Tony looks at him quizzically. 

Steve swallows, shaken. Did Tony know what he had been thinking? But Tony calmly takes a sip out of the coffee Bucky bought him, and Steve nods jerkily. "I was thinking that too."

"Blonde hair and blue eyes - you should write something about you and the band," Tony suggests, "this is your fourth album, anonymity can't possibly last forever." More quietly, "and it's better for you to choose when to come out with the truth."

"I don't think I could write songs about myself," Steve shakes his head. "There's little that's songworthy about me, but about the band? Sure."

"Stevie's not used to his muscle yet," Bucky explains. "Used to be the skinniest kid on the block, can't reconcile that with pop icon."

"Really?" Tony's eyes flick back to Steve. "Can't imagine you as anything other than strong."

 _God_ , he tells his cheeks, _don't turn red_. "Bucky likes to exaggerate."

"We have _pictures_ ," Sam argues gleefully.

Steve's eyes meet Tony's, and his stomach does a very interesting _flip-flop_ that doesn't bode well. Somehow, Tony has managed to slot himself perfectly into Steve's life, between Steve's friends and into the lyrics that unravel Steve's thoughts, slipping in between pages and seeping through the walls where Steve's posters hang. 

He doesn't know what to do, because it means that what Bucky and Sam have been saying all along is true. 

That his time is running out, and one day Tony's time at the Academy will come to a close. Steve himself was in his third year, which meant he would graduate in a year, the wide world outside waiting for an anonymous artist to step out the shadows of a school protecting him inside a bubble.

The _flip-flopping_ continues onwards, even after Tony leaves them for his class, even as he says goodbye to Bucky and Sam so he can listen to his lecture on art history, all the while thinking about how the artists of ancient times still found a way to draw love, to put gods into drawing and spell poetry about golden sunlight.

* * *

The labs are Tony's safe haven.

Granted, they aren't as well equipped as Tony's ancestral-bedroom-turned-workshop at the palace, but Bruce and Janet more than make up for it.

Academy Director Nick Fury has long since given up on attempting to stick Tony into class schedules. "As long as you submit all assignments and exams, do whatever you like," Fury had relented after Tony presented him with a miniature flying aircraft carrier, complete with tiny rotors that could actually make it fly.

So, Tony tinkers with his miniature arc reactor prototype, finding a eureka moment when Bruce had suggested a palladium-based catalyst.

The freedom to pull off all-nighters without having to worry about formal dinners or diplomatic crises was _amazing_.

"Ants are great," Janet continues on her unrelated tangent, "wasps, however, are even better. Imagine being able to understand how they - "

"Hello?"

Right. So the labs were supposed to be Tony's safe haven.

Until Steve Rogers pokes his head into the door. 

"Bruce, Janet," Steve greets happily, and Bruce returns with a silent thumbs up as his left hand keeps swirling a potassium nitrate mix. "Ah, there you are, Tony."

Janet sends Tony a curious glance, bordering on reprimand. He hadn't gotten around to telling her that Steve had more than made up with him.

"Did you need me for anything?" Tony says blandly, ignoring her in favor of eyeing the donut box in Steve's hand. "Did you bring that for us?"

"I met Happy buying some lunch earlier, and he said you've been stuck here since last evening," Steve sounds shy, "thought the science team could use an energy boost."

There were olive branches and there was whatever this was. 

They were good, no fighting between them, and Tony had even warmed up to Steve's friends, so without any bad blood, why was Steve trying to bribe Tony with sugary treats?

And how had Steve managed to worm his way through Happy's gruffness?

Jan doesn't have the same hesitance, however, launching herself into Steve's arms for a hug. "Steve!" she relieves Steve of the donut box, opening it with delight, "we haven't met in ages. How's the newest album going? I've got a bet with Hank and I need to know."

"Tony's been helping out a lot," Steve sends her a fond smile. "The strawberries are for you, blueberry filling for Tony, and glazed for Bruce."

Blueberry? Tony was _sold_. He makes grabby hands at Jan until she hands the box over, but stutters slightly when he realises Steve had been paying attention.

All the practice sessions with Tony's frozen berries as a snack, all the questions peppered in about what Tony love most at home, all the late nights asking if Tony got enough rest -

 _Hold me when the lightning strikes,_ the memory of Steve's voice dipping low ricochets in Tony's chest, _lead me home when it's hard to find._

This _cannot_ be happening.

In the equation of how many people would be hurt by Tony's very large omission that he is a crown prince, he himself was supposed to be the only collateral.

It was supposed to be Tony who was unwilling to let go of the life here of freedom and passion and songs that strummed of hope. 

No one was supposed to be attached to him.

Even Bruce and Jan could go on with their lives without Tony there. After all, they'd gone through their whole lives without Tony, and a blip of one year should fade away fast enough.

His Kingdom enjoyed being unknown to the wide world, staying at the fringes but holding power through their weaponry, and JARVIS was infallible in his protection of Tony's true title. 

He has a sinking feeling, though, that Steve won't let him fade away from memory that easily. 

_God_ , he doesn't want to hurt Steve, and yet he can't stomach the thought of slowly slipping out of Steve's recollections. 

Was it so bad that he wants someone to remember him the way Steve treasures his friends?

After Ty, Sunset, Whitney, was it so bad that Tony wants a kind man? A good man?

 _Dammit_ , why couldn't he just marry someone as safe and devoted as Rhodey or Happy or Pepper?

 _Because their hearts belong to someone else. Don't be selfish_ , his mind chides. Then, with irony-tinged amusement, _Steve isn't engaged._

"Hey," Steve waves his hand in Tony's face. "Are you sure you don't need sleep, Tony?"

"No," Tony blinks. More surely, "I've got donuts, I can go a few more hours."

"I'm heading back to the dorms if you want to come with."

 _Who are you to presume_ , Tony wants to snap angrily, because why did Steve have to ruin his plans with his sincere kindness that was too much, too searing hot to touch? Yet, it was that very kindness which turned the words to bitter ash in his mouth.

"No," Tony half lies. "I need to get through putting this reactor part together."

"Sleep is good, Tony," Bruce chews his donut innocently.

"And keeping a firm eye in your chemicals is good practice, Bruce," he fires back.

"If you're sure," Steve huffs, lips tipping up, "see you around, Tony."

_Be my starlight, my aurora rainbow bright_

_My nightlight, north star, home afar_

The song's beats refuse to let Tony go, weighing him down with guilt, because Tony wasn't anyone's nightlight.

He needs to call Pepper, do damage control - not only for Steve who was getting too close, but for Tony's own self too, because one good reason is all he needs to throw everything away to kiss Steve, and he's afraid that he's already got too many reasons.

* * *

With the semester winding down, exams taken and the end of the year looming, Steve has more time to finalise their latest album. He hasn't figured out the name yet, but the fifteen main songs were done. The last thing to do was come up with a bonus track or two.

The others usually trust Steve to piece together the unused lyrics and notes into a coherent song. This time around, however, they had all liked the subtlety of the guitar-piano duet, a rare ensemble for the _Howling Commandos_ that they were sure fans would consider a welcome surprise.

Naturally, that means Steve is squeezed up on the piano bench next to Tony, facing the opposite direction so he has space to play his guitar as Tony tests out the notes.

Although some part of Steve was rolling his eyes at the utterly transparent way his friends had chosen to shove him together with Tony, he doesn't quite regret it because it's time spent with Tony's brilliance, and he doesn't know how much longer Tony is planning to stay.

The semester was nearly over, there was little reason for Tony to stay any longer. Of course, he could simply ask, but he's afraid of the answer.

So he plays the guitar chord, focusing on how it blends with the higher octave on the piano, their shoulders knocking each other as they play.

"That sounds better," Tony's voice is scratchier than usual.

Steve nods. "Thor can sing on the higher notes, and we repeat that sequence 'til the bridge, trim it down six notes a bar, then - "

" - pick it back up for the next verse and outro."

"Did you record that?" Steve says in lieu of agreeing.

Tony nods his chin to the laptop on the coffee table. "Yeah. We can go through it later."

"Right," Steve adjusts the knob of his guitar, tuning it to sound slightly fuller, "when I get to the part with ' _and if I address my letters to the fire_ ', can you dip down then up again at ' _fire_ '? Mirror that at the ' _then I must confess I desire_ ' and the ' _to press myself against the pyre_ ' but at pyre we should try to - "

" - to go an octave lower before we ramp back up again faster for the closing ' _of your damning touch, cut the wire, fall far higher, keep me singing at the choir, worshippin' your wildfire_ '."

"Why don't _you_ sing it instead of Thor?" Steve suggests, breath caught in his throat because the song was - it was supposed to be about Tony, but the way Tony easily understood everything Steve needed to coax out of the music, it was thrilling and dangerous and _fun._

“You’re the art student, you could sing the whole thing,” Tony continues to dance his fingers faster over the black and white keys, up and up and up, the pedal carrying them stronger through the air until the breath that catches in Steve's throat lodges itself forever there, entranced.

Music was music, until it became song.

Tony turned song to hymn.

"I can't reach the high alto notes," Steve shrugs, resting his guitar on the floor, letting it lean against the piano. "And I paint, I don't do opera."

The lilting notes stop as Tony huffs a quiet laugh. “Something our good Academy Captain can't do? That must be a first.”

"There are a lot of things I can't do," Steve says. _Like how I can't kiss you_.

"And here I thought I knew everything about you."

Steve pokes Tony's ribs with his elbow. “Pretty sure you don’t know I like butter pecan.”

“And now I do.”

 _God,_ Steve wants to kiss him so much. This close, if Steve turns his face enough to the left, his nose would brush Tony's cheek, and from there it would be so easy to breathe in the now-familiar scent of caramel coffee and frozen blueberries. 

“Well, _your_ Wikipedia says your favorite book is Great Expectations," Steve deflects, "so should I really trust someone so bland?”

That earns a louder laugh from Tony, punctuated by Tony's fingers falling on the piano keys. “Pepper changed it again, didn’t she? My favorite book is actually Homer’s _Odyssey_ , nothing as exciting as Great Expectations.”

Steve snorts. “Liar.”

Tony grins, spinning around so they both face outwards. “Anything else about me you’d like to know – or see – more of?”

 _Your smile_ , Steve would've liked to answer, but a more truthful one spills out of him. “A picture.”

“What?”

“Nothing much – just – I paint. And I collect portraits? For drawing references," he finishes lamely. "And, um," he casts around for anything to say to Tony's wide eyes. _Get a grip_ , Steve chides himself, not coming up with anything except. "So. Yeah.”

“You going to paint me like one of your French girls?” Tony waggles his brows.

“Nevermind,” Steve sighs, wiping his eyes with the back of his palm, because he _really_ doesn't want to face Tony after the embarrassment.

“No,” Tony cuts in. “I’ve just never had people ask me for that. They usually want a selfie, or an autograph. Or money. Nothing as _boring_ as me on the piano.”

“It’s, uh, you make it beautiful. Your music. It's something else.” _Dammit_ , why does he have to keep stumbling over something that should be simple?

Tony makes a noncommittal sound. “I’m sure you’ll find someone better than me.”

“Seriously doubt that, Mr. Rich Guy.”

“I’ll stay to the semester's end to finish the album, and then – " Tony twists his hands together, leg starting to bounce. "I can’t stay longer.”

In the end, it's desperation that drives Steve to put his hand on top of Tony's thigh, stilling its bounce. His thumb makes a wide arc across it, questioning and giving Tony all the chance to run away. When all Tony does is hold his breath, Steve murmurs, “stop me if you don’t want this.”

"Steve," Tony says his name like it's the only thing he can say, and Steve leans in, because Tony's touch is burning and damning and yielding and it isn't long before Tony starts pressing back, hand clawing lines between Steve's shoulderblades.

He lets himself reach up to touch the soft curls of Tony's hair, its lemon shampoo a sharp freshness that pulls Steve further in, and he thinks that maybe for all that he's written songs about love, none of them compared to the crescendo that was this.

* * *

Tony stares up at his red ceiling, breathing in once, twice, thrice.

Deep breaths in, long breaths out.

He slept with Steve.

Another breath.

Now he's left alone in bed, tangled up naked in his silk sheets, his dorm room one hundred percent Steve-free.

Let the breath out.

Okay, not the first time he's been ditched by a one night stand. Except he might've ruined what he'd had with Steve because he hadn't been able to think without his dick getting in the way. Then again, he had around a month to go at the Academy. There wasn't much left to ruin. 

He plonks his head back down on the pillow. 

To think that things had been going better.

Damage control: report to Pepper, figure out where Happy went that they managed to get so far as to spend the night together, and end things with Steve.

The door clicks open.

Tony rushes to hide back in under the sheets - reflex after Pepper had seen his nakedness one too many times - only to hear: "You weren't so shy last night."

He braves peeking out of the blanket. "Steve?"

"Did you really think I'd disappear like that?" Steve tosses a fresh packet of berries on the bed.

Yes. But Tony isn't going to admit it. He counters question with question. “Why are you holding breakfast?”

Steve continues unpacking the sandwiches from the corner cafe. “Because it’s only polite?”

“I can afford my own breakfast.” This _cannot_ be happening. He can't be _wooed_ by such simple gestures.

“So?”

“So. Usually, this hour is for negotiation," Tony sighs. Better to get this part over with. He suspects Steve was too kind for schemes, but Tony also thought that about Ty. "How much do you want?”

“How many sandwiches?”

There was one last chance to laugh it off, to linger a while longer in this afterglow. There was the chance to drive Steve far, far away, create the chasm that would make Steve forget about Tony. That would make all of Tony's secrets fade away undiscovered, a stain washed off Steve's thoughts.

The long run, the greater good.

Tony takes the cold approach. “Money. To keep quiet about this.”

Steve crosses his arms. “I didn’t have sex with you to be paid.”

“I know. I also know that one night stands tend to blabber to the press, so," he hardens his heart. "How much?”

“I’m not taking any of your money," Steve takes a step back, as if slapped. "I don’t even know who you are, what you're the heir to - Tony, what the hell?”

In that blue shirt, with that bed-rumpled hair, Steve looks so wonderful and so upset altogether that Tony has to take another deep breath to keep his resolve. “Your loss,” he manages to say without his voice breaking, crashing against _want_ and _duty_.

“Tony, I – ”

“I don’t do relationships, Steve. I _can’t_.”

“But – ”

“Pepper will be in touch with you,” Tony firmly commands. Even naked, even with bile rising up his throat, Tony was born a Prince, which means he knows how to control a room, to demand and have his demands followed through. He sits up straight in bed, meeting Steve's eyes head on.

“Who's Pepper?” Steve presses onward.

Tony doesn't answer. “I’m not who you think I am, Steve.”

“You’re kinder than I thought, you’re more brilliant. Funnier too." A pause, Steve's fingers curling into fists. "Is it because I’m poor?”

“No – never that," Tony quickly denies. Courage. Stark men were iron, after all. "You deserve to be _free_ , Steve, to write songs about love and to one day find it. To paint dreams of a better world and to one day lead it. We’re both young; you shouldn’t be so ready to give yourself away to the likes of me.”

Steve tips his chin up, defiant. “And you shouldn’t be so afraid to let yourself be free.”

That was enough.

That _had_ to be enough.

This was the most that Tony could ever hope for from this ill-advised tryst, and with anyone else, Tony might be willing to let it go on until his final day at the Academy, but Steve didn't deserve to have his heart played with, to have his beliefs twisted by the politics of court and the lies that seeped deep in each crevice of Tony's life, the chains that pulled Tony back.

“Get out, Steve.”

He thinks that Steve will argue, and he reels himself for the shouting, but all he gets is a short nod and a, "take care of yourself, Tony."

It should be a victory when the door clicks shut.

There's only an echoing hollowness.

_Fuck._

* * *

Steve finds himself lost, adrift.

How had the best night of his life turned into the worst?

Three days after that horribly weird morning, Fury had called Steve up to the Academy Director's office to announce that Tony had vacated the campus early, and it _hurts_ that Tony had thought Steve wasn't worth the explanation.

Natasha offers her services to sneak into Fury's office and gain intel on who Tony really was. 

Steve turns her down. 

The rest of the _Commandos_ band tries to cheer Steve up, and yet every time Steve tries to pick up the guitar - something that should've been his refuge - he can only think of Tony's face contorted in half-anger, half-guilt telling Steve to go away. 

The lyrics don't tingle electric like they used to, the allegories grim with hindsight. _P_ _ress myself against the pyre of your damning touch. Cut the wire, fall far higher -_ he can't stop thinking about Tony, and that's just as well because a week after Tony vanishes off campus, a blonde lady interrupts Steve's art history class.

"I'm Lady Virginia Potts," she stretches her hand out, "Chief of Staff of the Royal Stark Household."

"Royal," Steve repeats, uncomprehending.

"For matters of national security, Prince Edward's identity was to be kept confidential."

"Edward," Steve tries the word out. Had he never known even Tony's - Edward's - real name? Underneath the numbness, Steve finds an answering pain.

"His Royal Highness does prefer to be called Tony in private, and he has arranged for a settlement in exchange for your silence on your relations with him."

Oh. The pain flares brighter. How much more must Tony belittle the truth of Steve's affection? "I don't want his money, ma'am. I only want an explanation. The truth."

"For that I require a more secluded area than the corridor," Lady Potts motions for him to lead the way, and the men in suits guarding the corridor's entrances move along with them. "Your fellow bandmembers might find it in their interest to join. His Royal Highness prepared parting gifts he was unable to deliver."

"Gifts he chose not to deliver," Steve corrects flippantly. Snapping at the messenger was unfair, and more calmly, Steve adds, "I wasn't even aware there was a Stark Kingdom."

"The Kingdom of Stark finds its strength in its subtlety."

Sam and Bucky don't believe too easily that Tony is a prince, and still Lady Potts hands them each NDAs far thicker than those that Steve used to shroud the band in anonymity. They sign their initials on each page before they each receive a box filled with tiny treasures. Bribery is what it feels like, and it leaves a sour taste in Steve's mouth.

"Why did he come here if he wanted to leave like that?" he asks as he signs his final initial.

Lady Potts takes the thick papers from him. "The Prince - Tony, he tries his best. He hoped some freedom from his title would help him find himself."

"How did you expect him to find himself while lying about everything?"

"His Royal Highness _did_ mention you would be the hardest to convince, Mr. Rogers. For you, he left an additional letter, for you to read at your convenience."

Bucky fiddled with the gold S setter for his cello that had come in Tony's box for him. "If we were to fly over to your kingdom and stormed the palace, would we be allowed to meet Tony?"

"I assure you our security forces prevent any storming," Lady Potts' lips curl up, amused. "Until King Howard passes or until the Prince turns twenty three next Spring, the Prince has little jurisdiction over the palace's guests, and Chancellor Stane must approve of any visitors, barring emergencies and various exceptions."

Was she giving them leeway? Before Steve can prod further, Sam speaks up. "Tell Tony it's very unprincely of him to dodge out of his responsibilities like that. We were writing an album together. Now we have no one to play the piano. More importantly, we're his _friends_. Why isn't Bruce and Jan here?"

"Doctors Banner and van Dyne have been contacted earlier by Colonel Rhodes. You will find the funds transferred into your respective accounts by midnight tonight."

"Funds?"

"If you had read the NDAs properly, His Royal Highness insisted on twenty thousand dollars for each of you to prepare for your next album launch. And in his own words: ' _to buy as much pizza as Thor needs_ '."

"He doesn't need to _pay_ us," Steve feels his anger win over confusion, "he can take his false pity and shove it somewhere - "

"Be careful where you tread, Mr. Rogers. Prince Edward Anthony remains my future King and my _friend_ ," Lady Potts stands, heels clicking on the hard tile. "You would do well to refrain from insulting a good man."

Bucky, faithful as ever, holds Steve back from an escalating fight. "It's not worth it," Bucky mutters. "It doesn't seem real, but it _could_ be real, and on the offchance that you actually fucked a Prince, Stevie, maybe you want to read the letter first?"

"Should you require any further correspondence, you will find my contact details in the envelope, Mr. Rogers," Lady Potts doesn't bat an eye at their language.

Later, when Bucky, Sam, and Nat have finished stalking Tony - Prince Edward - as best as they can, Steve shoves the letter to the bottommost drawer of his room. 

The hurt is too fresh for him to be able to read it without prejudice, and he bats away his friends' questions about the box he received.

He _had_ opened it, emotion choking him because Tony knew.

Tony knew exactly what Steve needed to weather the storm of hurt threatening to crack him, and Steve wonders if that too was a reflection of Tony's heart that he'll never know the truth of.

Written in the box's inside cover was a snippet of the song they'd written together: _for your auroras rainbow bright_ , and a vibrant set of color pencils, paints, brushes, and charcoal in the box stared up at him.

Steve takes an empty canvas.

He lets his anger guide his sharp lines, lets his wistfulness curve in the smoother ones, he puts his annoyance in the bold strokes of paint, and his itch for more into the precise lines framing the jaw. He takes the bitterness and brushes in the black piano, pours out his memory of warm skin and and tired eyes and swirls the colors together.

Art had always been his escape, but this was him closing a chapter of his life.

Exam results were being announced, the summer holidays on the horizon, Steve continues pouring and pouring and pouring until he paints in the red lips last. 

His debt paid, he doesn't owe Tony anything else.

Steve walks into the studio where the rest of his band was gathered.

" _Endgame_ ," he announces, steadier than he'd been in months. "That's the album's name."

"So, you've emerged from your painting spree?" Bucky confirms.

"Yeah. Tony's definitely going to listen to whatever we put out, so let's put out with a bang."

"Steve, are you sure you're alright?" Sam asks.

He thinks of Tony's smile in the portrait he had just finished, and the address that he had shipped it off to - a palace he will never see in a kingdom he might never hear of again. He thinks of sunshine smiles and midnight confessions and lies mingling with a truth neither of them had been brave enough to say. 

_Steve,_

_There's a conviction to you that makes me want to believe - in myself and in the world. There's a truth to your songs that speak to the heart, to the wants and needs and dreams and strength of people. The very things I must try to inspire as my nation's future King._

_Lies are the opposite of inspiring, and I must ask you to forgive my deception. You deserve someone who won't put a heavy crown on your shoulders that already carry the weight of loving the world as much as you do._

_Thank you for sparing me some of that love._

_If at any time you need help, I doubt you still love me enough to trust me, but ~~Pepper's~~ Lady Potts' contact is attached. She will find you anything you need._ _  
_

_I set out to Avengers Academy to find who I was beyond the glamour and beneath the crown._

_I found you instead._

_So thank you also for being my nightlight._

_Yours,_

_Tony_

He thinks of how Natasha had told him about the Kingdom's crest that spoke of iron will, thinks of how alive Tony had been under the lone spotlight shining over the piano, how excited Tony had been to talk about machines instead of people, and how weary the Prince had been after the trip to Geneva.

"I'm alright," Steve tells Sam. "I know we're all tense because of our missing pianist - "

"Understatement of the year," Bucky mutters.

" - but we have fifteen completed tracks already, which is essentially the whole thing," Steve finishes.

"So we're moving on?"

Steve nods. "We're moving on."

* * *

Running a palace was no easy task.

Since Tony returned from his so-called sabbatical at the Academy, he's been preparing for his twenty-third birthday, when all his rights as the first in line to the throne will come to full fruition and he no longer needs to have Howard or Stane approve his every action.

He enlists Pepper to start the relentless attack against producing weapons. There is nothing for him to lose, not when he's given up his chance at happiness for the sake of duty, for the sake of rules that demanded he keep the secrecy of their kingdom.

 _Diversify the economy_ , Tony argues in front of the Privy Council, invoking the ancient decree that Kings were not to affect the reign of the following King without the heir's approval. _It's time our kingdom came out of hiding, build a new legacy for the future_ , he unfurls his plans, the miniaturised arc reactor he can fit into homes that will completely cut the kingdom's dependence on fuel.

He stands tall as the reactor's blue light casts a halo through the meeting chambers, noting Chancellor Stane's frown, Minister Carter's wide eyes, and Advisor Phillips' folded hands.

Howard tells Tony to sit back down, but when Tony walks to return to his seat at the other head of the Council table, Howard shakes his head, motioning to the empty spot that used to be the Queen's seat, at the right hand of the King. 

"You have grown," Howard says, "and you will make a good ruler."

Not an admission of pride, or god forbid, love. But it _is_ an admission of support, and Tony knows he cannot expect much more from Howard. 

"We must open our borders," Tony takes his new seat, forging onward, "there's a world out there that is full of - " _kindness, passion and truth and art and beauty_ , "full of those who can make our country richer, if not in gold then in food and warm hearths."

"There are those who would seek to harm us too, my Prince," Chancellor Stane argues.

"Do we not have enough weaponry and defense to keep ourselves safe?" Tony refuses to back down.

"We do," Howard nods. "The future has always been about reinvention, and you have come home reinvented, my son."

 _I came home heartbroken_ , Tony wants to say, _and I won't have anyone else face the same choice of duty over happiness, not over rules I can change._ He knows, however, when to push and when to hold his cards.

"Thank you, father," Tony replies, smiling all the while at the rest of the Council.

His days go on, he attends the summer festival for the arts, visits schools and attends the opening of a new factory. Pepper delivers him a portrait from Steve, and he slashes the wrappings to find his own self frozen in time, fingers pressed against piano keys in a lifetime that ended only three months ago but feels like forever.

He wonders how Steve can still see him in that state of grace, how Steve drew Tony's smile with such precision without cursing Tony's name. Questions better left unanswered.

He tells Pepper not to hire an artist for his yearly portrait.

"Add that to the Royal Gallery," Tony commands, "place it somewhere I won't find it."

"Will you send a reply?" Pepper asks.

"No," Tony manages to keep the bitterness down. "No. I won't intrude in his life any more."

At night, though, he still finds the portrait in the heavy silence of the gallery filled with faces of the dead. He was a genius, familiar enough with Pepper's tricks that he knows she would place it beside Queen Maria's final portrait - the one Tony could scarcely bear seeing.

The yellow lights make everything look like faded parchment, and Tony stands there for the longest time, finding himself in the woman who had birthed him, who had also found the confines of the crown damning, the weight of the jewels choking around her neck.

"You would have loved him," he confides to her unmoving smile. "I'm going to do this right," he promises. "No more hiding, no more lies. No more feeding our people off blood-stained weapons."

His twenty-third birthday is marked by a week of revelry, Spring slowly brightening into Summer, and Tony accepts the sceptre of the Kingdom with the poise that his mother had taught him, keeping down his smugness at finally being free from the Privy Council's thumb. 

Tony's decrees needed only Howard's approval now, and he convinces the King to establish new embassies, new alliances on the basis of innovation instead of violence, friendship instead of desperate need.

To make a new legacy outside of war.

The work is difficult, but Tony manages to convince himself that it is necessary, that it is _good_. He learns the names of the Ministers who carry knives to strike when he is weak, learns whispers from Pepper and Rhodey and Happy about the intricacies of the court, and he manages to praise the right people enough to get his people enough food for the coming years.

Of course, the normalcy he had managed to claw himself back to wasn't meant to last.

It starts crumbling down when JARVIS interrupts Tony's tinkering with the latest version of what he's dubbed the helicarrier, designed to be a flying hospital and rescue ship. 

"Sir, the _Howling Commandos_ have released their latest album."

He puts down his welding gear. "Cancel all my engagements today."

No part of him trusts himself to think clearly after he listens to the songs he had helped write, to the last wisps of memory that might prove those precious months with Steve were real, that while Steve might've gone on to forget him, there was happiness in their history despite everything wretched and wrong, and _god_ , if Tony could go back, he would have held onto Steve's hand, fed Steve the berries for breakfast and kissed the pulse jumping on the inside of Steve's wrist, begging him to stay because one glimpse of sunlight was better than none.

One moment of weightlessnes was bliss - anything other than this feeling of always needing to fight to stay afloat above all the demands of being first in line to a throne he can't abandon.

He doesn't sleep that night.

Bleary-eyed in the morning, he rubs his eyes, downs a scalding cup of coffee, and picks up the lastest international newspaper Howard insisted on reading at breakfast.

He finds the universe laughing at him.

 _THE HOWLING COMMANDOS: AVENGERS UNMASKED_ , the bold headline splashes across the grey page.

_Steve Rogers, Avengers Academy’s valedictorian and lead vocalist to the worldwide music sensation Howling Commanods, releases new album Endgame. Its four lead singles, Golden, Ironheart, Nightlight, and Piano Confessions notch the four crowning spots on Billboard’s Top 200, continuing the band’s impressive history as breakthrough artists. Now without the curtain of anonymity, the Howling Commandos’ original founder Steve Rogers, who graduates Avengers Academy with a summa cum laude this summer, expresses his wish that whoever might listen to those songs may find solace in their loneliest nights, knowing that there are others thinking of them. When asked if Rogers, 23, was seeing someone, the musician said ‘not anymore’ but declined to comment further._

Tony feels his eyes blur.

Steve had actually done it - chosen the truth instead of hiding. But Steve had always been the better, braver man.

Tony's chest had tightened when he recognised the tune he had written together with Steve – the intro to _Nightlight_ , lilting piano notes accompanied by gentle guitar chords which pick up as Steve’s voice sings of the first time he truly _saw_ Tony, the lights bright over in the studio, hands turning silence into a symphony of art.

 _Ironheart’s_ pop-rock loudness was exactly the song Tony would have loved to dance to a year ago, before he realised that he hadn’t been in love with the songs. 

He had been in love with the man who had written them.

"Tony," Howard's sharp voice pulls him out of his buried grief. "Tony, I did my research."

"What?" Tony can't meet the King's eyes, because he can't let Howard see this one weakness.

"Something changed you while you went abroad. I needed to know what," Howard continues unabated. "Academy Director Nick Fury grew under the tutelage of Minister Carter, and she has petitioned me to make a special allowance."

Tony takes in a sharp breath. "What are you saying?"

"It is hard to be a good King when you grieve, and harder still to be a good father when your son reminds you of your loss," Howard hands him a piece of paper over the breakfast table. "There is no need for you to grieve the living."

Curious and cautious all at once, Tony takes the paper, reading the words with disbelief. _Permission for Entry into Sovereign Land_ , the heading reads, with the full crest of the Crown. "What do you want?" Tony has to question, because his father couldn't possibly be doing this out of the goodness of his heart, "in exchange for this, what do you want?"

"I only need you to be the future of our bloodline," Howard says.

Tony thinks of the weight of his duty, he thinks of Steve's songs, weaving melodies as beautiful as the portrait he had made of Tony, he thinks about the way Steve had _seen_ Tony through all of Tony's stumbling attempts at finding a home, finding friendship and companionship to lift the heaviness of his burden. He thinks of how cowardly it had been for him to run away, and of a chance at mending broken bridges.

He was, after all, an engineer with two doctorates.

There wasn't a bridge in the world that he couldn't make better.

No more regrets of the past. No more hypocrisy.

Only the future.

“Pepper?” Tony knocks on her door an hour later. “I think I made a mistake.”

She peers at him from over her glasses. “What can I do?”

“You know the art gala we’re having next week?”

“Of course.”

He waves the document Howard had handed him. “Think you could spare some tickets?”

She snatches the paper from him, grinning wide. “Of course, Prince Anthony.”

“You’re the best, m’lady.”

* * *

"Woah," Sam whispers, hushed with wide-eyed reverence.

They were all jetlagged from an all-expenses paid flight in the Prince’s personal jet. A limosine was waiting for them at the royal airstrip, Happy Hogan sitting in the driver’s seat.

Steve had been hesitant about the invite, until his phone had chimed with a message so _Tony_ that he couldn't ignore it.

' _I hacked into the Pentagon when I was twelve on a dare. Don't ask me how I got your number, but I wanted to say I'm sorry, and I didn't want to do it via text, so pretty please come over? I promise I'll make it worth your time. P.S. You haven't returned my shirt yet._ '

His friends' pressure and his curiosity had won out in the end. It might've also helped that when Steve asked for a picture proof that it was indeed Tony messaging him, he had gotten DUM-E in a very out-of-season Christmas hat, one crayon in its claw and what looked like a very deformed drawing of a guitar taped on the wall.

Yes, Steve still carried the hurt, the anger, the confusion of that horrible morning, but he had poured out the worst of it into his art, and as he stares up at the vaulted ceilings of the royal palace, he starts to understand why Tony had wanted to run away from this, and why Tony would have doubted the hand Steve offered.

He aches for the young Tony who must've played in these cavernous halls, lost in their largeness, dwarved by the demands placed on him. ' _You deserve someone who won't put a heavy crown on your shoulders that already carry the weight of loving the world as much as you do,_ ' Tony had said in the letter, and Steve wants to yell at him, to tell him that weights were meant to be shared, that some people were only as alone as they made themselves be.

“Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Barton, Ms. Romanoff, Lord Odinson,” Lady Potts greets them at the base of the grand staircase, and Bucky sends an accusing glare at Thor.

"Don't tell me you were secretly royalty too," Bucky growls.

"I am a descendant of the Nordic royal line, though I have no throne to ascend to," Thor adds, giving Lady Potts a deep bow, which she returns with a small curtsy.

"I'm not bowing to you," Bucky says with utter finality to Thor. "Do we have to bow to Tony?"

"You are to bow at precisely a twenty seven degree angle," Lady Potts smiles blandly.

Clint pokes at the marble railing of the staircase. "Twenty seven?"

Lady Potts clasps her hands together, the vision of priopriety. "His Royal Highness is a renowned mathematician and engineer. He has calculated the precise angle the human body must bend in order to mess with their minds."

"To mess with our - "

"What Lady Potts means is that we don't need to bow," Natasha rolls her eyes, earning a smile.

"Let me show you to your rooms. The King is unable to receive you at the moment," Lady Potts signals at a wall, and a small army of butlers come out to take their bags.

Sam whistles. "We're actually sleeping here, in the palace. That's - _holy shit_. Do you have gold toilets?"

"Our lavatories are perfectly polished," Lady Potts corrects with an air of extreme professionalism. "Your rooms will be in the West Wing, where distinguished members of the Crown reside."

"Distinguished," Clint mutters.

"Hush," Natasha chides. "Will His Royal Highness be receiving us?"

"The Prince has asked to see Mr. Rogers in private before he receives you, though he will wait until you have all refreshed yourselves."

"I'd prefer not to delay," Steve says. "I refreshed plenty on the private jet."

"No," Natasha pulls him back, "we need to comb your hair, and you're not _really_ meeting Tony without wearing your best suit, are you?"

This _is_ a palace, Steve has to remind himself, and Tony _is_ a Prince, so Steve lets himself be marched through winding hallways that give him glimpses of the history seeped deep in the walls, he peeks out the crystal windows to see sprawling gardens with rosebushes lining the outer walls, until they reach an ornate door and the butler turns the silver doorknob.

"It is custom that each guest is given their own chambers. However, His Royal Highness insists that you would be more comfortable in shared quarters. These are the chambers of the Royal Consort, and we ask that you take exceptional care with the items in the chambers."

The center sitting room branches off into four bedrooms, a study, a dining room, a private sitting room, and three bathrooms. Their clothes have somehow winded up in the closets already, unpacked with speed by the chambermaids into the bedrooms designated for each of them.

Very predictably, as soon as the outer door clicks shut and they're left alone to presumably refresh, Sam throws himself onto the nearest bed, and Clint pokes at a vase, grimacing when he reads out the small plague under it. _Han Dynasty vase, gifted by the Last Emperor of China to King Harold the Fourth._

"Their soap smells like _Dior_ ," Bucky pokes his head out of the bathroom. "He's really a prince. Steve, you better strip because you're _definitely_ not meeting him looking like a ruffled cat."

Natasha pushes Steve into the largest bedroom. "Off," she points at Steve's jacket, and somehow Thor produces a lapel pin in the shape of a flower, Sam pulls out a comb, Bucky sprays one of the perfumes from the bathroom, and Clint tapes a video of it all.

He tries to get away with using his sneakers, but his collar is pulled back by Natasha, stopping his escape. "If I have to wear heels, you have to wear the fancy shoes too," she points sternly at the polished shoes waiting by the door. Then, gentler and more understanding, "Steve, whatever you choose to do, remember why you loved him in the first place."

"I didn't love him," he tries to deny, because it makes his stomach roil uncomfortably.

"Nobody writes songs about letters to the fire and aurora rainbows without loving something or someone."

"Nat," Steve confesses his quiet fear, "I don't measure up to princes and kings."

"Even princes are human too. They have their fears, their mistakes, their hearts."

Steve carries those words with him, mulling them in his head when Lady Potts leads him away from his friends. She takes him through a different path, through smaller hallways and up several flights of stairs.

He's moved on, but he doesn't think he can let go until he's seen Tony again. A proper closure to that whirlwind chapter of his life. He isn't foolish enough to hope that he would truly date a prince, and yet, he doesn't enjoy facing all the what-ifs that haunted him since he had first kissed Tony, so human and warm, until the marble statues of the Kings that lined the walls.

“Go in," Lady Potts eventually stops walking, waving towards the door at the very end of the corridor. "Don’t speak unless the Prince speaks to you first. Do _not_ turn your back on him. You will address him as Your Royal Highness after he greets you, then Sir in all following instances.”

“Would I be arrested if I called him Tony by accident?”

“You’re just as bad as him, aren’t you?” Lady Potts sighs, her cool mask slipping. "No one will arrest you."

"Certainly, no one would dare arrest a singer as acclaimed as you. We find diplomacy far more strategic."

Lady Potts' cool mask returns. "The Honorable Chancellor Stane," she announces the newcomer.

"Chancellor Stane," Steve collects himself, refusing to be daunted by the Chancellor's formal regalia, "it is my honor that you find my music enjoyable."

The Chancellor adjusts one of the ruby rings on his fingers, looking away from Steve. "You have made quite a stir in this kingdom."

"So long as we stir towards the the right course, and the brighter future, I do not find a problem," Steve says. As an afterthought, he adds, "Sir."

Glancing back up to scrutinize Steve for a moment, the Chancellor gives Steve a tight smile, lips thin. "Welcome to the Palace, Mr. Rogers." He turns to Lady Potts. "Ms. Potts, do ensure that Tony does not forget to attend Parliament's next session."

"Of course, Mr. Stane."

Footsteps silent against the padded carpet, they both watch the Chancellor walk away, and Lady Potts finally gives Steve a truly friendly smile. "You'll do _perfectly_ well here, Mr. Rogers."

That doesn't quite help the jittery nerves when the door swings open, Lady Potts announcing his arrival. He doesn't hear any of it, though, because he's too busy staring at Tony, who is - who is, _wow_.

White gloves cover Tony's hands. The red suit that falls perfectly on Tony's shoulders has ornate gold detail that swirl to the center, where a black vest peeks out, and where it tapers beautifully at Tony's waist.

For a moment, he forgets everything he had been prepared to say to Tony.

“Uh," Tony clears his throat, "surprise?”

Steve blinks. “Tony – Your Highness.” That was wrong. "Your Royal Highness," he corrects.

“No," Tony laughs, half amusement, half discomfort. "Forget everything Pepper told you.”

“You’re a prince,” Steve says blankly, still too busy admiring the way the red accented Tony's curves.

“ _The_ prince,” Tony's lips twitch up. "Sit, please."

Following Tony's example, Steve sits in the armchair across Tony. It's plush, velvet and soft. Was this the Prince's sitting room? There was nothing else except three other armchairs, a table, and a fireplace in the room. 

“I called you a spoiled brat," Steve realises with horror. "Am I allowed to cuss – ”

“And I called you a horrible ass, so I think we’re even, Steve.”

“Is this why you – ”

“I told you, you should see me in a crown.”

Steve lets out a soft laugh despite himself. He imagines a jeweled crown on top of Tony's head, the way Tony's straight back would hold it aloft with defiance, and he nearly groans, needing to draw it, to somehow put his awe into words. But all the words he can find turn back to three simple ones. "You left us."

Tony ducks his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't - this is a gilded cage, and I know how you fight against cages." Tony twists his hands together, the fabric of his gloves scrunching up. "But I - I missed you."

"I would have liked being given a choice."

"I wouldn't have been able to live with your choice. Either you chose to be trapped with me, or you chose to leave me."

"Then why did you call us here?" Steve barely stops himself from snapping. If Tony remained insistent on pushing them away, why -

"Because I talked with the King, and we came to a compromise." Tony stands, walking to the empty fireplace and staring at its dark hollow wall. "Because I read the note you left behind my poster." _Art takes time_ , Steve remembers writing on the poster when he had signed it, _and muses come as the people you least expect_. Tony's eyes meet Steve's. "Because I don't want to regret you."

Oh. Steve deflates, the fight draining out of him. "Tony, I - "

"And why did you come here?" Tony bites his lip.

"Because you asked," Steve admits. "Because I haven't returned your shirt."

Tony's laugh comes out wet, choked. "You're going to be the death of me, Rogers."

"You started it," Steve huffs.

"I _am_ sorry," Tony says again, turning back to his armchair. "It's no excuse, but I was scared and I - I don't know if I can find anyone like you again."

Steve stands up, taking careful, measured steps to Tony, and reaching out to gather Tony's shaking hands in his, the silk of Tony's gloves too smooth, without the calluses Steve was used to. "I don't know if _I_ can find anyone like you again." He sighs. "Tony, I don't appreciate the lies or the - the secrets, but I understand why you felt you needed them, and I'd very much like to know all of you."

"You don't mean that."

"I liked - " no, he can't reprimand Tony if he was lying too. "I loved the Tony Stark I met, who played music like he was born for it - did you have tutors who taught you? - and I loved the Tony Stark I learned about who talked to his robots and believed in giving feasts to local schools. I'm sure I'll find something to love about - about Prince Edward Anthony of Stark."

"There's a gala tomorrow," Tony starts.

"I know."

"The gala is my excuse to invite you here under formal grounds."

"I know."

"You're not angry?"

"I met Chancellor Stane," Steve answers. A beat. "I know why you _really_ must've wanted to get away from him."

Tony chokes, hand squeezing around Steve's as he steadies himself. "Did Obie - did you call Stane a spoiled brat, too?"

"He welcomed me to the palace."

Eyebrows climbing high, Tony tips his head sideways. "He _welcomed_ you? He doesn't like how you've been distracting me, and didn't like that Howard invited you over."

Steve feels his cheeks warm. "I might've told him I don't find that to be a problem."

"You," Tony pokes at Steve's chest with his free hand, "are," he tucks his gloved fingers between the black of Steve's suit and the dark blue dress shirt under it, tugging Steve closer, "perfect."

"Lady Potts said a similar thing."

"Because it's the truth, because it means they won't underestimate you, and you'll fit right in," Tony glances down at their joined hands, his white gloves meeting Steve's skin, suddenly hesitant, "and I'd, um, I'd really love to dance to _Nightlight_ at tomorrow's gala."

"Oh," it hits Steve like a train that Tony _did_ listen to the music they made together. That Steve was now a world-famous pop icon. He wasn't a nameless student at the Academy anymore, and that was terrifying. That was - 

“I’d, uh, really love to dance to it with you," Tony continues. "If you – if you still want me.”

He should refuse, because after going public with the band, he hasn't had enough time to wrap himself around the idea that he was famous, and dating a prince would only push that fame into even greater heights that Steve doesn't know what to do. And yet - burdens were meant to be shared. 

They didn't need to be alone, not anymore.

“I think it’s more a question of whether you survive ‘til tomorrow,” Steve lets himself smile, “Bucky might just throttle you.”

“Well, I have you to protect me, don’t I?” Tony smiles back, lifting their joined hands up to press his lips againsts Steve's knuckles, hot and burning down to where his bones met soul.

Steve pulls their hands back towards him, gently reaching for the edge of the glove tucked into Tony's sleeve. He hears Tony's breath catch when he starts tugging at it, but he keeps going on until the silk slides off Tony's hand, and Steve can splay his hand across their familiar roughness, the calluses from working on machinery and the lines running across his palm.

Real, unhidden, the truth beneath the glamor.

“Hey Tony?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

Tony's eyes are flecked with gold again, glinting in the sun, a dawn of hope-filled promises.

Steve squeezes his hand tight, not letting go.

“I missed you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @starklysteve :)


End file.
